letter of Mr. Spencer to the writer, on the ethics of reviewing, which seem so appropriate here as perhaps to justify the liberty of publication: —

"I am not inclined to quarrel with the intolerance which limits itself to hard words. Denunciation of something held to be wrong commonly implies strong attachment to something held to be right; and, whether this something is right or not, the feeling enlisted on its side is a good one. Whoso is indifferent when he hears denial of what he mistakes for the truth, would be an equally indifferent defender of the truth itself, did he hold it. If absolute toleration were possible, society would dissolve. Were there no reprobation of any opinions, there would be no reprobation of the actions dictated by those opinions; vice would be as respectable as virtue, and order would become impossible. Any one who says toleration should be unlimited, commits himself to more than he intends; as he will find on taking an extreme case. Suppose there grew up among us a sect like the Thugs of India, with whom assassination is religious duty. Suppose that their doctrine was tolerated to the full, and no one spoken the worse of for becoming a convert to it. Suppose that, thus unhindered, the sect grew and ramified throughout society, assimilating to itself all who had enemies to be revenged on, or wished to get rid of men standing in their way. Would not the organization, by facilitating murders, be a gigantic evil? and would not the universal sense of insecurity be an additional source of misery? Nay, worse. To treat such a doctrine with toleration implies toleration of murder itself; for, detestation of the doctrine being merely a reflex of detestation of the act, the one cannot cease without the other ceasing. And, if there were no detestation of murder, the punishment for murder would not be enforced ; since a law becomes inoperative when there is no public feeling to support and aid the agency for executing it. Clearly, then, the wellfare of mankind, necessitating intolerance of certain kinds of conduct, necessitates intolerance of the opinions which justify such conduct. Had you heard the strong words I have used to those who defend our doings in Jamaica, you would see that I can be intolerant enough myself upon occasion; and I should be ashamed were it otherwise.

"But, you will say, the doctrines which we thus cannot allow to be denied without manifesting reprobation are moral principles. which directly underlie social life, and we resent any thing antag

onistic to them, because it endangers human welfare; whereas the theological intolerance in question concerns certain propositions," which may be admitted or rejected, without affecting the laws of right conduct. The reply is, that those who defend these propositions so warmly, contend that belief in them also underlies human welfare, underlies it, indeed, more deeply than any other. I have no hesitation in accepting as perfectly sincere their professed conviction, that, in the absence of a revealed will of God, there could be no moral law. And hence it seems to me quite natural, and indeed quite proper, that they should be intolerant of doctrines opposed to one which they think all-essential. That the laws of right conduct are deducible from the laws of life, as limited by social conditions, is a conception entirely alien to their way of thinking, and practically incredible to them. In the absence of such a conception, the choice is between the guidance they have, or no guidance at all; and, very rightly, they cling to that which they have. Their intolerance is but the correlative of their allegiance to the highest truth they

see.

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Beyond this justification for theological intolerance, there is a deeper justification. The attachment of a society to its creed is the mark of a certain fitness between the two, not simply an intellectual fitness, but a moral fitness. The rewards and penalties of the existing religions, described as definite and inevitable, are far more operative on minds in a certain stage of progress than those which science discloses as arising by the necessities of things, but in ways that are difficult to trace, and contingent in detail, though inevitable on the average. Hence it is best for the old to live on as long as it can, yielding inch by inch only as fast as the new grows up to replace it; and men's attachment to the old is the measure of its remaining vitality, and of the still continued need for it.

"Are, then,' you will ask, 'all these displays of intolerance to pass unnoticed?' I do not say that. Though the spirit which prompts them is defensible, it does not follow that the ways in which this spirit is manifested are defensible. The dishonesties and stupidities of criticism may be condemned while saying nothing against the feeling of antagonism which the criticism shows. Judging from those I have seen, your religious journals in America are less unscrupulous than those we have here; but their criticisms contain plenty of gross misrepresentations and deliberate perversities, and for these they may very properly be held to account."

ART. V.-CRETE AND THE CRETANS.

Kreta. Ein Versuch zur Aufhellung der Mythologie und Geschichte, der Religion und Verfassung dieser Insel, von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Römer-Herrschaft. Von KARL HOECK, Dr. Professor der Universität Göttingen und Secretär der Königl. Bibliothek. [Three volumes.] Göttingen: Bei Carl Eduard Rosenbusch. 1823-1829. Reise nach der Insel Kreta im griechischen Archipelagus im Jahre 1817. Von F. W. SIEBER. [Two volumes.] Leipzig und Sorau : Bei Friedrich Fleischer. Travels in Crete. By ROBERT PASHLEY, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. [Two volumes.] Cambridge, Pitt Press; and London, John Murray. 1837.

1823.

Travels and Researches in Crete. By Captain T. A. B. Spratt, R.N., C.B., F.R.S., Honorary Member of the Archæological Institutes at Berlin and Rome. [Two volumes.] London: John Van Voorst. 1865.

CRETE may be regarded in many respects as the garden of Greece; for it is capable, if civilized and cultivated, of producing, in vast abundance, corn, wine, silk, oil, honey, and wool. "The land is stocked with game," says Gordon, "the sea with fine fish; fruit is plentiful, and of a delicious flavor." The southernmost land in Europe, with an extreme length of one hundred and sixty miles and a breadth varying from six to forty-five miles, it contains an area of about four thousand square miles. Its northern coast is deeply indented, and affords numerous roadsteads; but the mountain chain that runs the whole length of the island fronts the sea, on its southern side, bleak and precipitous; and its southern coast is therefore almost inaccessible.

The climate on the uplands, which are rapidly drained of the rain, has always been famous for its excellence; the heats of summer being tempered by the north wind, while the warmer breezes that reach the island from Africa, meeting and driving back the cold air that draws down from Europe, soften the harshness of winter. One of the names, indeed, the an

cients gave the island was Eria, by reason of its balmy air and splendid climate. Moreover, if a spot were to be sought for with the mildest, and therefore the best, climate, it would naturally be found in Crete. Excluding the polar circle, such a spot would be midway between the first and sixty sixth or seventh degree of latitude; that is, about latitude 331°; and Crete lies between 34° and 35° north latitude. Its northern coast, indeed, being washed by the Egean, and its southern by the Libyan Sea, Crete lies just where the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa meet; and it possesses, therefore, all the climatic advantages of those continents without being subjected to any of their disadvantages. In the winter, there is only rain; while the summer, by reason of the lofty snowy summits of its mountains and the cool sea-breezes, is a perpetual spring. As early as December, you find hyacinths and narcissuses and jasmines. Orange-blossoms perfume the air the whole year; and, with no north wind and no sirocco to strip the trees of their leaves or blast the freshness of their verdure, the lemon, olive, palm, laurel, cyprus, pomegranate, oleander, and myrtle never lose their foliage or their fragrance. Well might the ancients term the mountain from which they looked down upon this laughing landscape of forest, meadow, green glen, and sparkling rill, with the lower mountain-sides all golden with the broom or blood-red with the ilex,- well might they call it Ida, I have seen!

The summer vegetables, being such as are peculiar to hot climates, rest in the winter; when the hardier vegetables of Northern Europe grow all through the island in perfection, ripening in May, and resting in turn until revived by the autumnal rains. The quince-tree, so common in our own rougher climate, received its name from Cydonia, the district in Crete where it was indigenous. According to Pliny, every thing grew better in Crete than elsewhere. Homer praises its Pramnian wine: and it was famous for aromatic shrubs and medicinal herbs; among others, the dictammon, so celebrated among physicians, naturalists, and poets. The island, moreover, was free from all wild beasts and all noxious animals;

though the Cretan dogs could vie with the hounds of Sparta, and Sieber states that there are still wild horses on Mount Ida, who can only be caught by being driven into the gorges, and there arrested by the lasso; while the Cretan agrimi, or wild goat, is supposed to be the origin of all our domestic varieties.

There is no month in the year without its green leaves, and brilliant flowers, and esculent fruits, and fragrant shrubs. By every wayside fountain you will find a great plane-tree overshadowing the crystal water,—such a plane-tree as that under which, as the legend was, Zeus first embraced Europa with his love, in memory of which event the tree never afterwards lost its leaves. No wonder that the ancients called it Macaronesos, or the "fortunate isle;" or that Hippocrates sent his patients there to be cured.

The hill-sides and the mountains are fragrant with red and white and blue thyme flowers; and, along the streams in the valleys, you may pluck at any time a myrtle blossom or the laurel. In every field you will find a shady bosquet of orange, citron, and almond trees, interrupting with their bright tints the running gray of the olive groves that make the background of the landscape. The hollows of the rocks you lie in are carpeted with the dictammon, whose blossoms perfume the air; and here and there, among the roses and myrtles and sweet-smelling thyme, rises the tall palm far above the garlanded trees at its feet, its stately crown swaying in the air with the zephyrs that glide forth from the thickets where bubbling fountains have cooled them; while everywhere you hear the hum of bees busy at their work of making the choicest honey of the Old World, and now and then, clear and sweet, above the notes of countless songsters, the voice of the kaja-bulbul, so famous in Turkey for its melody and plumage as to command a price of a hundred dollars.

It was perhaps because they found in Crete alone a nectar worthy of them, that the gods chose to be born there. The water of Crete, too, seems to have obtained the reputation of being of the best; and it is still the custom to set before the stranger, on his arrival, in gracious token of their hospitality, -first honey to eat, and then water to drink.