is good in each of these opposite tendencies may be combined, and finds the point of union for all in a deeper submission to the doctrine, and love to the person, of Christ.

The second portion of the Encyclopædia opens with the discussion of the vexed question concerning the relative importance of the various branches of theological science, and the order in which they ought to be studied. As was to be expected from the history of German theology, Apologetics is not placed by him at the threshold of the curriculum, but occupies a subordinate position as an outpost of systematic theology. Whilst insisting that no really exclusive study of any one department is possible or desirable, he maintains the natural order of study for Protestant theologians to be,-1, Exegetical Theology; 2, Church History; 3, Systematic Theology, and 4, Practical Theology; the reasons for which are at once obvious and satisfactory. Each of these four great divisions is handled at considerable length, in such a manner as to present a connected view of the subdivisions, its past history, and the best method of prosecuting its study, together with a valuable list of classified works (chiefly German) bearing upon each department. A discussion of the manner in which this part of the subject is treated would demand longer illustrative extracts than we have space for.

The work abounds with valuable hints both for the student and the pastor. There are two subjects, however, on which the statements of Dr Hagenbach appear to us to require a guarded and careful scrutiny. The first is, his tendency to ascribe too much importance to the fact that the writers of Scripture, though inspired, were men, and to seek in their human nature an opening for criticism and conjecture in the study of the Bible, which we cannot but regard with apprehension. The second is, a strong reactionary feeling against the use of confessions of faith, together with unwarranted contempt for the theology of the seventeenth century.

The style of the work is varied and entertaining; distinguished for perspicuity and force, as well as freshness of illustration. The greater part of the book has been issued in each edition almost in the same form as it appeared in the first, about 30 years ago, the chief alterations and improvements being additions to the lists of books and estimates of their value. In the present edition, Dr Hagenbach has endeavoured to embrace, so far as possible, the theological literature of Germany for the years 1854-56. This department of the Manual, both because of the great labour incurred and because of the great discrimination shown in it, is peculiarly important; for of no literature can the witty warning of Niebuhr be more appropriately used than of the theological literature of his own country :-"Beware of reading without discrimination; Eolus caused only that one wind to blow which should waft Ulysses home, he bound the rest,-set free and conflicting with each other, they sent him hopelessly astray."

THE

NORTH BRITISH REVIEW.

NOVEMBER, 1858.

ART. I.-1. Mouvement Commercial. Published by the French Government.

2. Annuaire des Deux Mondes. 1857.

3. Statistical Tables of the Board of Trade. 1857.

4. Personal Observation.

THE attitude of the French Government, and the interests of the French nation, present certainly the most important, and perhaps also the most complex, question of our external politics. Great Britain and France are the two European empires from whose mutual alliance each has the greatest commercial and diplomatic advantages to secure-from whose mutual hostility each, possibly, has the greatest actual danger to apprehend, and each, no doubt, has the greatest contingent glory to acquire. It must be acknowledged that the deductions which we would draw from the events that have transpired around us, are not of an uniform tenor. On the one hand, the alliance between the two countries has subsisted, without any solid interruption, during twenty-eight years, and under three distinct forms of government in France. It has been based, therefore, on a foundation more secure than that of an alliance with a single dynasty under the present Empire; or a sympathy with cognate political institution, under the Orleans monarchy. In 1854, after twenty-four years of general amity between the two nations, their friendship was cemented by a union in war, in defence of the principles which England had invariably cherished; but in defiance of those projects of territorial acquisition at the expense of Turkey, which had been the dream both of the first Empire, and of the restored Monarchy in France. It may not only be thus assumed, but it

VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII.

T

may be also demonstrated, that the Anglo-French alliance exists under a direct reciprocity of commercial interest. And while the peace or war policy of this country rests upon fixed and determinate principles, the French Government, since the treaty of 1856, has actively addressed itself to domestic interests, which it will require all its attention to promote.

On the other hand, it cannot be forgotten that France, since her peace with Russia, has exhibited a large amount of warlike activity; that the French military establishment is far more than commensurate with the contingent necessities (large though they be) of civil government; that the increase of the port of Cherbourg, the extensive shipbuilding, and the large maritime conscription of that country, imply a desire to rival our naval strength, if not also to contest our naval supremacy. It must be remembered also, that, on two recent occasions-that of the Russian claim to the Isle of Serpents and Bolgrad, and that of the conspiracy of last January-the policy of the French Government indicated a certain divergence from the principles before recognised in the alliance of the two countries. Nor can we reject, as entirely without significance, the fact, that the absolute control exerted by that Court over the French press, and the restriction from discussion of all topics hostile to its policy, do not preclude the publication in Paris of innumerable attacks on the British constitution and the British people.

The leading characteristic of the French imperial policy is that of a government too firm for domestic revolution, and yet too calculating for impulsive war. It is the apparent object of the present Emperor to approximate, as far as possible, by means of a prosperous peace, to that international predominance which the Great Napoleon achieved by means of military success. The maintenance of the British alliance in the interest of commerce has, therefore, hitherto formed the cardinal aim of his policy. For no war would so directly cripple the external trade of France, as a war between that country and our own. This alliance, far from checking, has, on the contrary, developed the naval and military power of the French Government, inasmuch as, by increasing the national wealth, it has added to the means of war. Prosperity and arms form obviously the two chief conditions of political power. The combined development of this double object appears to be the problem which the French Emperor has set himself to work out. We shall here endeavour to indicate the degree in which it has been realised. A government which could so regulate its commercial policy as to create a public wealth adequate to the permanent establishment of 400,000, troops, of whom 150,000 are disposable for foreign service-to increase its fleets and docks, and to maintain 40,000 registered

The Population of France.

291

sailors in reserve-might fairly aspire to pre-eminence among the European powers.

We pass from these general observations to an inquiry into the actual condition and resources of the French Empire. We will take first the question of its population, which must materially affect its external policy.

It is a singular anomaly, to see a civilised and wealthy nation, like that of France, scarcely contributing to the population of the New World in an appreciable degree, and yet interposed between two nations which are annually emigrating to an extent by ten times that of the present increase of the French population itself; for it would be difficult to determine, from authentic returns, whether Germany or the United Kingdom had availed itself most largely of the modern system of colonisation. It is computed, on the other hand, in statistics published at Paris, that emigration from the French territory does not exceed, on an average, 12,000 annually. The immediate cause of this fact is obvious. The French population does not indeed decline; but the ratio of increase has vastly diminished, both under the census of 1846-51 and under that of 1851-56. It is to be assumed that the population does not increase more rapidly than the labour, the production, and the importation, which together constitute the means of living. France, therefore, has not the motive of necessity which has actuated other nations in emigration; and, probably, some other intrinsic differences between the character of the French people and our own might be adduced in relation to the distinction of the two nations in point of colonisation. But it is to be apprehended that the arguments which have been drawn from the last and the preceding census are somewhat hasty; and that it is not possible to form such conclusive deductions, with regard to the political future of France, as have been put forward on those data.

We will first glance at the returns of population during the last twenty years. The census, as has been already intimated, is taken in France not decennially, but quinquennially. It appears that, under the census of 1841, as compared with that of 1836, the French population had increased by 650,000; and that, under the census of 1846, as compared with that of 1841, it had increased by 1,170,000. On the other hand, in 1851 the increase above the census of 1846 was not more than 382,000; and the increase in 1856, above the census of 1851, was not more than 254,000. What are the assumptions to be drawn from these figures?

Now, so far as politics are immediately concerned, we know only of four leading influences on the tendency of the population in regard to numbers. The population may be depressed by a

sense of insecurity, arising from unstable government, by a course of commercial impolicy in the fiscal laws or the foreign relations of the state, by loss of life in war, and by a costly and oppressive system of administration. There are, of course, many other influences which are not immediately set in motion by the character of the government; but, in regard to those which have been enumerated,-if we refer the difference of increase between 1,170,000 in 1841-46, and 382,000 in 1846-51, chiefly to the difference in public security between five years of M. Guizot's administration and five years principally of revolution, how are we to account for a still greater difference between the periods 1841-46 and 1851-56, as represented by the figures 1,170,000 and 254,000, since both those periods were periods of nearly equal public security? If, again, the difference of population is to be referred mainly to the cost or oppression of the system of government, how are we to account for the fact, that this system was hardly less costly and oppressive under the Soult-Guizot Ministry, when the increase of population was at its highest point, than under the Empire, when it had been at its lowest ebb? For, towards the close of Louis Philippe's reign, the French army was nearly as extensive as at present; and whatever titular liberty might exist was cancelled by venality.

"For freedom's forms disguised the despot's thought;
He ruled by synods, and the synods bought."

There has been no considerable difference in the commercial policy or the commercial alliances of the French Government during any one of these periods; and although the Crimean war, during the last of them, involved a greater mortality to the French than to ourselves, even in proportion to the numbers engaged, their losses would account for a very small part only of the difference of increase between the census of 1856 and that of 1846; while the war in question formed no distinct incident of the imperial system, but would have been pursued, in similar circumstances, by any one of the governments of France since the year 1830, with the exception, perhaps, of that of M. Thiers.

Thus far, therefore, we arrive at the negative conclusion, that the declining ratio of increase in the French population cannot be ascribed, at any rate in considerable degree, either to the expenditure or despotism of the French Government, or to its belligerent character, or to its commercial policy. We have seen, moreover, that the stimulus to population, arising from a sense of public security, which the French people undoubtedly possessed during the chief part of the five years 1851–56, in as great a degree as during the five years 1841-46, could hardly be imagined, if we were to take bare figures for our index, to