The Contemporary Review, January 1883

18

See Daily News, Nov. 30 and Dec. 1; La Liberté, Nov. 29, and Le Parlement of same date. Both these French journals speak of an "Act by which the Tanànarivo Government cancelled the Treaty of 1868" (Le Parlement), and of its being "annulled by Queen Ranavàlona of her own authority" (La Liberté). It is only necessary to say that no such "Act" ever had any existence, save in the fertile brains of French journalists, and it is now brought forward apparently with a view to excite animosity towards the Malagasy in the minds of their readers.

19

E.g., The Manchester Guardian, Dec. 1st., 5th., and 6th.

20

Almost all Malagasy words for military tactics and rank are of English origin, so are many of the words used for building operations, and the influence of England is also shown by the fact that almost all the words connected with education and literature are from us, such as school, class, lesson, pen, copybook, pencil, slate, book, gazette, press, print, proof, capital, period, &c., grammar, geography, addition, &c.

21

See Le Parlement, Dec. 15, and other French papers.

22

Among the many unfair statements of the Parisian press is an article in Le Rappel, of Oct. 29, copied by many other papers, in which this Tangéna ordeal is described as if it was now a practice of the Malagasy, the intention being, of course, to lead its readers to look upon them as still barbarous; the fact being that its use has been obsolete ever since 1865 (Art. XVIII. of English Treaty), and its practice is a capital offence, as a form of treason. The Malagasy Envoys are represented as saying that their Supreme Court often condemned criminals to death by its use!

23

See Tract No. II. of the Madagascar Committee.

24

See Lord Granville's speech in reply to the address of the Madagascar Committee, Nov. 28.

25

The Admiral, so it is reported on good authority, congratulated the Queen and her Government on having solved the question of Madagascar by showing that the Hova could govern it. He also said that France and England were in perfect accord on this point, and on the wisdom of recognizing Queen Ranavàlona as sovereign of the whole island. See Daily News, Dec. 14. This will no doubt be confirmed by the publication of the official report which has been asked for by Mr. G. Palmer, M.P.

26

"La Génie des Religions," l. i. c. i.

27

Ibid., c. iv.

28

The author of "Natural Religion" thinks it mistaken in so declaring itself. "Its invectives against God and against Religion do not prove that it is atheistic, but only that it thinks itself so. And why does it think itself so? Because God and Religion are identified in its view with the Catholic Church; and the Catholic Church is a thing so very redoubtable that we need scarcely inquire why it is passionately hated and feared" (p. 37). But this is an error. God and Religion are not identified, in the view of the Revolution, with the Catholic Church. It will be evident to anyone who will read its accredited organs that it is as implacably hostile to religious Protestantism as to Catholicism. Perhaps I may be allowed to refer, on this subject, to some remarks of my own in an article entitled "Free Thought—French and English," published in this Review, in February last, p. 241.

29

See his Preface to the Second Edition.

30

Warburton, a shrewd observer enough, expressed the same view a hundred years ago, with characteristic truculence:—"Mathematicians—I do not mean the inventors and geniuses amongst them, whom I honour, but the Demonstrators of others' inventions, who are ten times duller and prouder than a damned poet—have a strange aversion to everything that smacks of religion."—Letters to Hurd, xix.

31

Preface to Second Edition, p. vii.

32

Ibid., p. v.

33

Summa, 1

2

qu. 60, art. 3.

34

"Grammar of Assent," p. 389. 5th ed.

35

What Wordsworth says is—

"We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love,
And, even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend."

This is widely different from the nude proposition that "we live by admiration."

36

See also p. 127.

37

A good deal of information about Theophilanthropy and the Theophilanthropists, in an undigested and, indeed, chaotic state, will be found in Grégoire's "Histoire des Sectes Religieuses," vol. i.

38

The Theophilanthropists were most anxious that the object of their worship should not be supposed to be the Christian God. Thus in one of their hymns their Deity is invoked as follows:—

"Non, tu n'es pas le Dieu dont le prêtre est l'apôtre,
Tu n'as point par la Bible enseigné les humains."

39