means nothing more nor less than the
exaggeration of science and power, ending at last
fatally in the fall of man, and an universal
catastrophe. Touching the future, the end
of the world, M. Huzar, after a mature
examination of all the theories of antiquity,
has come to the conclusion that the end of
the world will be disastrous, and that it will
naturally result from the before-stated
exaggeration of science and power: thus, what
has been, will be.

"Why this book?" proceeds to ask Monsieur
Huzar, in his prolegomena, and echo, in
the shape of the majority of his readers, will
repeat the question. Were the echo an Irish
one, the response, I fancy, would not even be
so complimentary. "How," asks Monsieur
Huzar, proceeding to answer his own riddle,
"could one refrain from being seized with
admiration and wonder almost akin to terror
in penetrating into these arcana, where at
the mere volition of mankind, the very
elements seem to respond with docility to the
demonstrations of science. If the cycle of
human knowledge goes on thus every day
increasing, will not, one day, the conquest of
the world become the patrimony of
humanity? "Such were the grave reflections
that Monsieur Huzar indulged in during a
lecture upon the Compression of Gas, when a
horrible noise, which he will never forget, he says,
was heard; blood flowed in the amphitheatre;
piercing cries were heard on all sides: the
compressing apparatus had burst, and of the
body of the unhappy demonstrator there
remained only a charred and mangled fragment.
A cold perspiration naturally covered
our latter-day prophet's face. He lived, he
says, a thousand years in the space of a
second; but, leaving the lecture-hall, he was
not contented with returning thanks to
Heaven for having escaped being blown up:
the latter days had appeared to him in all
their awful terror: he had seen the thunder
of Jupiter hurled at Prometheus; he had
seen Bellerophon cast down from high
heaven; so, going on his way, sighing and
not rejoicing, he found the law of universal
Palingenesis revealing itself to him; and he
thus formulated it: that original sin was
exaggerated and over-perfected science. This
is the latter-day prophet's definition of the
duration of ages. Many human cycles,
according to him, have made their appearance,
and have successively disappeared upon the
planet. Human cycles continue to be
renewed to infinity in the infinity of time; the
planet has existed for millions of years; our
historical cycle is but a second in the history
of the world.

Adam, Prometheus, Brahma (Mars, Apollo
virorum!) were the representative men of
the cycle immediately preceding ours; they
were the prototypes of civilisation carried to
the extreme, and science pushed to infinity.
But, enjoying unlimited liberty, they abused
it; they thought themselves gods when they
were only men; they fell, and the world fell
with them.

Adam, Prometheus, and Brahma, comfortably
pulverised and fallen into chaos, among
the ruins of a civilisation they wished to
carry to too high a pitch, and which ruins
have covered the earth for five thousand
years, a new cycle commenced; but as
heretofore, one of the most prominent
characters in the new drama was the serpent
—he who figures in all the religions of the
ancient world, and who embraces worlds
after having seduced them. This serpent is
after all, but the symbol of exaggeration, of
pride, of science, and of strength, which being
able to do everything possible, next tries the
impossible, and failing lamentably therein,
"falls never to rise again." It will be the
same one day, the latter-day prophet tells us,
with our cycle. Man one day will wish to
govern and direct the energies of nature;
but there will arrive a moment when he will
be no longer master of the power he has
abused; then nature will have her revenge,
and—it will be all up with everything.

There is a legend current in the side-scenes
of provincial theatres, of a sixth-rate comedian
in some bygone dramatic circuit, who had
to enact a very trifling part in a Shakspearian
play during the starring engagement of an
eminent tragedian. The part, I think, is that
of the Ambassador who tells King John that
Philip of France threatens him with violent
measures. At all events he had to answer
a question addressed to him by the king in
these words,

He will denounce on you a long and bloody war.

Now this comedian being short of memory,
somewhat weak in intellect, and decidedly of
nervous temperament, and mortally afraid of
the tragedian, who was a wrathful man, went
about the whole day, ceaselessly endeavouring
to master the not very difficult line
transcribed above. Night came at last; he made
his entrance, he got his cue, and—his speech
stuck in his throat. The words made
themselves skates, and scudded away; verbal
Tantalian waters welled up to his lips and
then as suddenly retreated. He could not
remember a word of what was set down for
him; in short, to employ theatrical parlance,
he stuck, and became an object of scorn to
some, of compassion to others, of wonder to
all. Suddenly, however, just as the tragedian's
countenance was beginning to assume
its most ominous expression, he remembered
the sense, if not the exact diction of his
speech, and in hot haste blurted out

There'll be a jolly row!

He was right in his generation: there was.
The audience laughed, the tragedian foamed
at the mouth with rage, and I believe the
poor player was discharged next day; but
wherein, save in mere verbal inaccuracy was
he to blame? A war invariably comprehends
a row; a long and bloody war must be