s year is principally noted for the
birth of Queen Victoria. The little princess, the daughter of Edward, Duke
of Kent, son of George the Third and Maria Louisa Victoria of Saxe-Coburg,
a sister of Leopold I. of Belgium, was born at Kensington Palace, and was
named Alexandrina Victoria.

[Sidenote: Schopenhauer]

Germans of the present day remember this year for the appearance of
Schopenhauer's great philosophic work "The World, as Will and Idea"--"Die
Welt als Wille und Vorstellung." Schopenhauer, in this book, laid down the
doctrine that the universe, and therefore human life as such, is governed
by the conflicting principles of the ungoverned will and of the
unattainable ideal. The true solution of life, he held, was to be found in
subjecting brute will to the intellectual force of the ideal.

[Sidenote: Assassination of Kotzebue]

Schopenhauer's book at that time passed almost unnoticed. The educated
classes of Germany were in too much of a ferment over the recent police
restrictions inflicted upon the universities and public press. By this time
it had become well known what part Czar Alexander had played at the
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. A vehement outcry arose at the universities
against the interference of foreigners in German affairs. The wrath of the
Liberals turned against August von Kotzebue, the prolific playwright, who
held the office of Russian agent in central Germany. Kotzebue conducted a
weekly newspaper at Mannheim in which he inveighed against the German
national movement of the day, and ridiculed the patriotic eccentricities of
the students. Having himself studied at Jena, Kotzebue was denounced by the
students there as a traitor. He was believed to be responsible for the
Czar's conversion from liberal ideas to reactionary principles. This belief
cost Kotzebue his life. One Sand, a theological student at Jena, noted for
piety and patriotic ardor, formed a fanatical resolution to do away with
this enemy of the country. An extract from Sand's diary, written on the eve
of his last New Year's day, reveals the character of the man: "I meet the
last day of this year in an earnest festal spirit, knowing well that the
Christmas which I have celebrated will be my last. If our strivings are to
result in anything, if the cause of mankind is to succeed in our
fatherland, if all is not to be forgotten, all our enthusiasm spent in
vain, the evil doer, the traitor, the corrupter of youth must die. Until I
have