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PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY. VOLUME I. v - '* For the Georgia Collegian. "All is Well!” “ All is well!” The nightly warden Lets his wakeful post be known; And in turn a sleepless cordon Sends the answering watch-cry on. Pledge of safety, note of promise, Sounds it through the murky air; Drives the dread of midnight from us, Friends are round us watching near. Though the foe lies close before us, Where his camp-fires glimmer still; Yet, to strengthen and assure us, Comes the watch-cry, “ All is well.” So, in life—when sorrows darken Thickly round our trembling feet, Oft our sinking spirits hearken To a voice as strangely sweet. “ All is well!” ’Ts Faith’s rejoinder Through the tempest-laden air— Rising o’er the breaker’s thunder, Like a trumpet, shrill and clear. “ All is well!” Hope sends the answer Thro’ the gathering mist and gloom; Lo ! she comes with golden censer, Pouring round her, sweet perfume. “ All is well!” ’Tis God who speaks it— Rise o’ch’ sorrow’s bending storm ; Life is what the creature makes it— Only Ljliisti andjs* *1 be firm. when me is ended, Christian! 10, the curtain drawn— Hope and Faith, thou God-befriended, Lead thee to the Father’s throne ! Eoline. ■ Athens , March 9th, 1870. LESSING’S LAOCOON. [ Continued .] BY PROF. F. A. LIPSCOMB. But I digress. All I desire to es tablish is, that among the ancients, beauty was the highest law of the plastic arts. And this established, it necessarily follows, that every thing else which can bo embraced at the same time within their province, must, if inconsistent with beauty, yield entirely to it; and if not incon sistent, must, at least, be subordinate. 1 will abide by this expression. There are passions and degrees of passion which are expressed by the ugliest possible contortions of coun tenance, and throw the whole body into such violent postures that all of those beautiful lines which circum scribe it in a composed state, are lost. From all such violent emotions the ancient masters either abstained en-. tirely, or reduced them to a lower degree, in which they are capable of some measure of beauty. Rage and despair disfigure none of their works. I dare assert, that they have never painted a Fury. Anger they tem- CLIMBING THE HEICHTS. ATHENS, GA., MARCH 19,1870. pered into seriousness. With the Poet, it was the ar.gry Jupiter who hurled the lightning ; with the Artist, it was only the serious. Grief was softened into sadness. And where this moderation could find no place, where the grief would have been as detracting as disfiguring, what did Timanthes ? His picture of the sac rifice of Iphigenia, in which he has imparted to all the bystanders that peculiar degree of sorrow appropriate to each, but concealed the face of the father which should have expressed the deepest degree of sorrow, is well known. Many clover criticisms have been made on this. He had, says one, so exhausted himself in sorrowful coun« tenances, that he despaired of being able to give a more sorrowful one to the father. He acknowledged by this, says another, that the pain of a father under such circumstances, is beyond all expression. For my own part, I see in this, neither the inabiU ity of the artist, nor the incapacity of art. With the degree of a passion the corresponding lines of the face are also strengthened ; in the high est degree thef- are the most iiistineV ly marked, and nothing is easier for art than to express them. But Ti mantbes knew the limits which the Graces had set to his art. He knew that the grief which became Agas memnon as a father, was expressed by contortions, which are at all times agly. So far as beauty and dignity could be united in the expression of sorrow, so far ho carried it. He would, indeed, willingly have passed over the ugly, willingly have modi* fied it, but since his conception ad mitted neither of its omission nor of its modification, what else was left for him to do, but to conceal it? What ho dared not paint, he left to be conjectured. In short, this con cealment is a sacrifice which the art ist made to beauty. It is an in stance, not how expression may be carried beyond the limits of art, but how it should be subjected to the first law of art, the law of beauty. And this, now, applied to the L&o --coon, the principle I seek, is clear. The master aimed at the highest beauty under the accepted conditions of bodily pain. The latter, in all its disfiguring violence, could not be combined with the former, he was therefore compelled to modify it, to soften shrieks into sighs— not be cause a shriek would have betrayed an ignoble soul, but because it would have disfigured the face in a hand some manner. For, only imagine the mouth of Laocoon forced open, and then judge ! Let him shriek and see ! Before, it was a form which inspired compassion, because it show ed, at the same time, beauty and pain ; now it has become an ugly and disgusting figure, from which we gladly turn our eyes; for the sight of pain excites displeasure, unless the beauty of the suffering object is such that it can change this displeasure into the sweet feeling of compassion. For the Georgia Collegian. Dr. Paley. [CON TIN U ED.] I now propose to consider briefly, Paley’s doctrine of Utility; prefa cing my remarks with this, that nothing that I or any one else could say would go so far to place this doctrine in a clear light, and to dis robe it of that dress of sordid sensu alism in the uncongruous folds of which, the deluded high priests of a false philosophy have so dextrously concealed its splendid truth ; noth*, ing so far to disrobe it of a perusal cf the work itself. But now it is gen erally not read at all, or read with a predetermination to place the worst possible construction upon every thing it contains; as if it were not an universal law, that when the mind is predetermined to judge harshly, it transcends the bounds of truth and justice. For does not difference make greater difference ? If you be gin to read a book, or to study a doc trine with a pre-existing antipathy towards it, whether it have any foun dation or not, will not the mind of itself go on and form a thousand that have only a subjective existence, and not one of which would over have had any existence at all had it not been for that pre-existing. Dos Cartes never said a wiser or truer thing, than that all error pro ceeds from hence—that the judging faculty does not keep within the same bounds as the understanding. And yet, to say nothing of that large class who condemn our author with out having over read a philosophy in their lives,l venture to say that even among students of philosophy, not one in fifty ever begins to read Paley without some prejudice against him, founded either upon popular opinion, or upon the arguments of Idealists made generally against the Lockian metaphysics. In discussing this doctrine of util ity, it will be necessary, first, to give the popular conception of what it is TERMS---$2.50 PER ANNUM. NUMBER 3. and then to give it as conceived by the author himself. The difference between ihem cannot be told. For the poles of the universe are not farther apart than popular belief and truth. Utilitarianism, according to modern acceptation, has become to mean a low, groveling philosophy which makes every thing material. A phi losophy which regards mind as noth ing more than matter in a high state of differentiation; and God as the unity of the laws of nature, without will, power, or even a proper exist** ence. A philosophy in which the present reigns supreme; which wil lingly sacrifices the repose of eterni ty to the pleasure of an hour. A phi losophy which denying all objective existence to right and wrong, makes pleasure and pain the only rule of morality. A philosophy which, re cognizing no god but convenience, looks with the same favor upon the hero who drives the foreign oppres sor from his country, and the assas sin who plunges his dagger into the heart of the domestic tyrant. A philosophy that denies all existence to disinterested virtue, patriotism, friendship-, devotion, lo\*o, and closes forever the portals of the soul that front the universe of God. Finally, in the language of J. D. Morrell, “ A philosophy in which man is wholly material; his pleasure on earth is but tho result of nervous affections; and it is hard to give any reason why the capacity of thought itself should not pass away forever when the bo dily structure is dissolved by death.” Is this the doctrine that Paley labor ed to teach ? Let us see. Paley’s doctrine of utility is briefly as follows ; “ When God created the human species, either He wished their happiness, or He wished their misery—or He was indifferent and unconcerned about both.” If He had wished our misery Ho would have made our senses to be so many sources of pain to us, as they are now sources of pleasure. Indif ference is inconsistent with the na ture of God. Therefore God wishes the happiness of bis creatures. Now then, outside of revelation, how aro we to estimate actions? By their utility. Wo are to inquire whether or not they contribute to the general good. It they do, then they are right; if not, wrong. Why? Be cause God wishes tho happiness of his creatures. Hence, if they contri bute to the general happiness, they meet with His approbation, and are, therefore, right; if not, they are against His will, and are, therefore, wrong. Whatever is oxpodient is