74-j- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



acquaintance with German habits of thought. Even in his boy- 

 hood he was an indefatigable bookworm, and residence in Germany 

 tended only to strengthen him in this habit, and to make him one of 

 the most versatile wi'iters and at the same time one of the most 

 diligent students of the day. On his return to England, he for the 

 first time felt, as he said, fully confident to enter on his career as a 

 litterateur. He contributed 'to the columns of the daily press reviews 

 and criticisms of books, and to the quarterly reviews and the leading 

 literary magazines of England scientific and philosophical essays, 

 biographical sketches, and the like. In 1849 he assumed the literary 

 editorship of the Leader newspaper, which post he held till 1854. A 

 London correspondent of an American journal, referring to this period 

 of Lewes's life, says: "His criticisms, as indeed all his writings, were 

 noted for piquancy, brilliancy, and boldness of thought. He had not 

 only no objection to expressing his opinions; he was determined that 

 the public should know them if they were capable of comprehending 

 pungent and forcible English. He has neA r er been a man with moral 

 or mental reservations. As soon as he has a new thought, a new 

 conviction, a new theory, he blurts it out. He was not long in mak- 

 ing his mark, and from that time to the present, whatever has ema- 

 nated from him has attracted attention and awakened interest." In 

 1865 he founded the Fortnightly Review^ but was compelled by ill 

 health to resign the editorship the following year; he was succeeded 

 by John Morley. 



His first elaborate work a work which affords ample evidence 

 both of his laborious industry and of his keen insight was the 

 "Biographical History of Philosophy, from Thales to Comte," first 

 published in 1845. A fourth edition, corrected and partly rewritten, 

 appeared in 1871 (2 vols.). An acute French critic says of this work 

 of Mr. Lewes : " His history resembles rather that of Hegel than 

 that of Ritter. His review of the labors of philosophers is rather 

 occupied with that which they have thought than with their com- 

 parative importance. He judges rather than expounds ; his history 

 is fastidious and critical. It is the work of a clear, precise, and ele- 

 gant mind, always that of a writer often witty, measured, possessing 

 no taste for declamation, and making its interest profitable to the 

 reader whom he forces to think. This is no ordinary history of phi- 

 losophy; it is the work of an original mind which has a great deal to 

 say, and yields voluntarily to the pleasure of saying it, a mind which 

 handles texts like a thinker, not like a scholar. Assuredly we must 

 not search Mr. Lewes's pages for enlightenment upon obscure points 

 and upon controverted passages ; but in this long journey from Thales 

 to Comte the author has taken amazing pains, and has put forth 

 enough teaching to content some, to leave others discontented, and to 

 make every one reflect" (Kibot, "English Psychology"). In the 

 preface to this .history Mr. Lewes offers the following definition of the 



