MA S TER 
 NEGA TIVE 
 NO. 93-81425 
 
MICROFILMED 1993 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK 
 
 as part of the . r. • *» 
 
 "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project 
 
 Funded by the ^^„^^,, xtt-ttcc 
 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 
 
 Reproductions may not be made without permission from 
 
 Columbia University Library 
 
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT 
 
 The coDvright law of the United States - Title 17 United 
 StSesCodl- concerns the making of photocopies or 
 other reproductions of copyrighted material. 
 
 Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and 
 archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other 
 Reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the 
 photocopy or other reproduction is not to be used for any 
 purpose other than private study, scholarship, or 
 ?esearch." If a user makes a request for, or "ater "seS' ^ .^ 
 DhotocoDV or reproduction for purposes in excess of fair 
 SslrthiJ^uler r?ay be liable for copyright infringement 
 
 This Institution reserves the right [.% ref use to accept a 
 copy order if, in Its judgement, *u"*".""Jf "j o* ^^^ °'^^'^ 
 would involve violation of the copyright law. 
 
A UTHOR : 
 
 PORTER, NOAH 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF 
 NATURE VERSUS.. 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1871 
 
Restrictions on Use: 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFO RM TARHFT 
 
 Master Negative # 
 
 Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record 
 
 0=C-wvo/w . 
 
 
 I . ._ 
 
 
 
 
 Yl.y |-4tI 
 
 Ui^l 
 
 9t m< ti » 0'» ^<W^ ■ 
 
 1 
 
 FILM SIZE: 
 
 J5 
 
 IB UB 
 
 2 
 
 TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA 
 REDUCTION RATIO:, }}^__ 
 
 IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA 
 
 DATE FILMED:______^2£.Cl^_ INITIALS ^ 
 
 FILMED BY: RESEARCH PURUCA~TinM<; TK|r W^PP" 
 
Mir 
 
 V 
 
 Associatioii for Information and Image Management 
 
 1100 Wayne Avenue. Suite 1100 
 Silver Spring. Maryland 20910 
 
 301/587-8202 
 
 Centimeter 
 
 an 
 
 1 
 
 iiiiliiiiliiiiiiuiiniiliiiiliiii 
 
 I 
 
 Inches 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 mm 
 
 il''Ul!M'lj'Ml[Nil[iiil[iiil|Mil m^ 
 
 2 3 4 5 
 
 .0 
 
 I.I 
 
 1.25 
 
 I^i 
 
 1^6 
 
 m 
 m 
 u 
 
 2.8 
 
 2.5 
 
 2.2 
 
 1 4.0 
 
 1.4 
 
 2.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 1.6 
 
 MfiNUFOCTURED TO RUM STONDflRDS 
 BY fiPPLIED IMRGE. INC. 
 

r^jri^^'j^^J^*i£^ 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 I I Bo°k p 
 
 Columbia College Library 
 
 Madison Av. and 49th St. New York. 
 
 J!eM\t< i!i> 
 
 SithjtuJ Xo 
 
 On 
 
 I hi /i/,.!, 
 
 <• 
 
 . -*-'*' 
 
 .. .| 
 
 
 
 ^V^~^>j 
 
 
 
 ^■;^4i 
 
 ■ 
 
 ^^F%<r 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 HH^^v '^^ 
 
 "^-a 
 
 BM™P" 
 
 %' 
 
 B ,^^- " 
 
 
 L ^r. 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 ^ 
 
 « <■ 
 
 
 J 
 
 ^ '..r-^ 
 
 "■^ 
 
 k-i^'-'-- ^<^-i 
 
 <\ 
 
 ^:^'> -.r 
 
 _^^ 
 
THE 
 
 i-i,; ; 
 
 Sciences of Nature 
 
 VERSUS 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 BY 
 
 NOAH PORTER. 
 
 " I walked on, mnsini? with myself 
 ♦ ♦ • ♦ * whether, after all, 
 A larger metaphysics might not help 
 Our physics." 
 
 — Mrs. E ^B^ggovNiNq. . 
 
 COI..COLL. 
 
 [JBRARY 
 
 &"MEAI3r. 
 
 >■»■» ■■ ■■-»- -• * 
 187I. 
 
 ITOD 
 
VN 
 
 •^ I ■! 
 
 V 
 
 \-^ 
 
 I I I 
 
 I ' I 
 
 '•■//' . K\ 
 
 \ 
 
 Mi 
 
 f. 
 <? 
 
 r 
 
 T 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ♦ •• 
 
 Enterea acconling to Act of Concrcps, in tne year 1871, 
 
 By DODD & MEAD, 
 
 in the Office of the Librariun of Congress*, at Washington. 
 
 
 I 
 
 LANGE Jk HIIXMAN, 
 
 PBINTERS AND 8TERE0TYPEBS, 
 
 108,110,112 4 114Woo.t«rSt., 
 KSW YORK. 
 
 Portions of the following essay were deliv- 
 ered as an address before the Societies of the 
 0, B. Ji., at Harvard and Trinity Colleges, 
 in June and July last. The request for its 
 publication has been made by many persons, 
 and in form by a committee of the Society in 
 Trinity College. The author preferred to pub- 
 lish the whole as a philosophical essay, with 
 some additional paragraphs and notes. No 
 explanation is required in respect to the in- 
 
 15042 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 terest and the importance of the subject — 
 especially at the present time — in this country 
 
 and in Great Britain. 
 
 N. P. 
 
 Yale College, Oct., 1871. 
 
 /"COL.COLL. 
 
 IJRR\Px\ 
 
 \ N.YOKK. 
 
 Km.-.^ .^i-.^,,.^^- 
 
 THE 
 
 Sciences of Nature 
 
 VERSUS THE 
 
 Science of Man. 
 
 -•^♦- 
 
 NOT many days ago, as I strayed into the 
 study of an eminent physicist, I observed hang- 
 ing against the wall, framed like a choice en- 
 graving, several dingy, ribbon-like strips of, I 
 knew not what, arranged in parallel rows. 
 My curiosity was at once aroused. What were 
 they? and why were they so carefully protected 
 and so greatly honored by my realistic friend ? 
 They might be shreds of mummy-wraps orbits 
 of friable bark-cloth from the Pacific, and there- 
 
8 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 fore needing to be guarded under glass ; or 
 perhaps, indeed, they were remnants from a 
 grandmother's wedding dress ; or shoe-ties, out 
 of which all color had faded, leaving a faint 
 shimmer of satin finish on the water-stained 
 surface. They were none of these ; to have 
 suggested any of which might have been re- 
 sented by the grave philosopher, who solidly 
 explained that they were carefully-prepared 
 photographs of portions of the Solar Spectrum. 
 I stood and mused, absorbed in the varying 
 yet significant intensities of light and shade, 
 bordered by mystic letters and symbolic num- 
 bers. As I mused, the pale legend began to glow 
 with life. Every line became luminous with 
 meaning. Every shadow was suffused with light 
 shining from behind, suggesting some mighty 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 9 
 
 achievement of knowledge; of knowledge 
 growing more daring in proportion to the re- 
 moteness of the object known ; of knowledge 
 becoming more positive in its answers, as the 
 questions which were asked seemed unanswer- 
 able. No Runic legend, no Babylonish arrow- 
 head, no Egyptian hieroglyph, no Moabite 
 stone, could present a history like this, or sug- 
 gest thoughts of such weighty import or so 
 stimulate and exalt the imagination. 
 
 Over against these symbolic bands — records 
 of light by means of the light and glowing 
 with light to the soul — hung the portrait of 
 Newton, with its wondrous forehead and eagle 
 glance. I turned from the spectrum to the 
 portrait and from the portrait to the spectrum, 
 still musing as I turned. Newton's daring 
 
10 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 suggestion,'* that the force, familiarly recogniz- 
 ed on the earth, might prevail as far as the moon 
 and possibly extend to the sun — coming like 
 inspiration, but held in abeyance for years, till 
 careful and long-delayed measurements made it 
 spring into an acknowledged fact, this came 
 to mind as it had never done before. With 
 it the successive experiments of Newton upon 
 the light — his expansion of the colorless beam 
 into the gay and many-colored spectrum, sug- 
 gesting theories of rays and undulations and 
 
 ♦ " As he sat alone in a garden, [166fi,] he fell Into a ppcculation on 
 the power of gravity ; that as this power is not found Bcneiblj dimin- 
 ished ftt the remotest distance from the centre of the earth to which we 
 can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the 
 Bunnnitsof the highest mountains, it appeared to him reasonable to 
 conclude that this power must extend much further than was usually 
 thought : why not as high as the moon ? said he to himself ; and if so, 
 her motion must be influenced by it ; perhaps she is retained in her 
 orbit thereby."— Whewkll, Hist, qf the Ind. Sciences, vol.1, b. vli., 
 ch. li., § 3." 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 II 
 
 mystic powers in the several colors. There 
 followed the thought of Wollaston and Young 
 and of Fraunhofer,and his discovery of the lines 
 that were afterwards to be interpreted as a 
 language from far-off worlds. But, first, chem- 
 istry must come into being, to evolve the gases 
 and decompose the solids, that it might use 
 the refracted light to determine the elements 
 of that which is consumed in the light-giving 
 flame. Each one of these steps of progress in- 
 volved bold invention and exact observation. 
 But each was necessary to this proudest 
 achievement of our times, by which the scientist 
 has connected the sun and the earth by the 
 closest affinities, and interpreted the structure 
 of the orb which for centuries had smitten with 
 blindness the eye that had ventured to gaze 
 
12 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 familiarly upon its face, and has even resolved 
 the nebulae themselves into luminous gases. 
 
 I exclaimed in thought : " Would that New- 
 ton were now living, and could look with 
 our open vision upon the blinding sun, the 
 glowing stars and the burning nebulae ! — those 
 objects which science first made so remote and 
 now brings so near — between which and the 
 eye she first interposed such abysms of distance 
 as appall the imagination and at last made so fa- 
 miliar and so near, that we inspect the sodium or 
 the hydrogen that burns in the lamp upon our 
 table, with the same look with which we watch 
 the sodium and the hydrogen that have been 
 consuming for ages in the sun or the stars. Of 
 all the kings and prophets of science, surely 
 Newton would most have desired to sec the 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 13 
 
 things which we see and to hear the things 
 which we hear : Would, indeed, that he could 
 live again and witness the completion of the 
 work which he so nobly began ! " 
 
 I awake from my musing, and, abjuring any 
 scepticism which I may have cherished, I 
 confess my faith in modern science. Though 
 hard-hearted as any metaphysician ought to 
 be, I prostrate myself before her shrine — nay, 
 so ardent is my neophytic zeal, that I am 
 tempted to glorify the photographic spectrum 
 into a fetich. Indeed, had I nothing else to 
 reverence, I could easily worship this. 
 
 I returned to my studies a wiser, perhaps 
 a sadder man. To refresh and assure my be- 
 wildered spirit I think of Socrates. Turning to 
 the Memorabilia of Xenophon, I find I was 
 
14 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NxVTURE 
 
 not mistaken in my memory, for it is there set 
 down to the credit of the philosopher, that *' he 
 never discoursed concerning the nature of all 
 things, how that which the Sophists call the uni- 
 iverse, o Hoapio? is constituted, under what laws 
 the heavenly bodies exist, etc., but invariably 
 represented those who concerned themselves 
 with inquiries of this sort as playing the fool. 
 First of all he inquired whether such persons 
 thought they had so far mastered the facts 
 which relate to man as to be justified in pro- 
 ceeding to such investigations, or whether 
 they considered it in order to leave human in- 
 quiries for physical researches."* Thus records 
 Xenophon concerning Socrates. Poor deluded 
 son of Sophroniscus! For such sentiments, 
 
 ♦ Xm. Mem., Lib. I. Cap. T. H-IO, 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 15 
 
 the present times would be more against thee 
 than were thine own, hard as they were ! Even 
 the defence of atheism would not have saved 
 thee again.st so enormous a heresy respecting 
 the sciences of nature. Had a society of 
 modern scientists sat in judgment upon thee, 
 they for once would have been unanimous and 
 voted thee worthy of death. Certainly Hiou 
 wouldst have had a smaller minority than thou 
 hadst in ancient Athens, in any modern scien- 
 tific association, whether it were a society for 
 mutual admiration or for reciprocal alterca- 
 tion. For is it not now an exploded idea that 
 man, or what concerns him, is better worth re- 
 garding, than what was called nature by the 
 sophists in the time of Socrates? Is not man 
 himself now in danger of being eliminated out 
 
i6 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 of the kosmos? And as to holding that man 
 has any great significance in the universe, 
 has not the doctrine become fixed that 
 science has to do only with phenomena, /". e,, 
 with material phenomena and their relations ? 
 Has not man been satisfactorily resolved 
 into nerve-substance and vibrating force, and 
 thus brought under the laws of mechanism? 
 And has it not come to unconscious speech with- 
 out even the suggestion of unconscious irony, 
 that this is the only way in which man can be 
 scientifically studied, even though by this pro- 
 cess he is scientifically disposed of? Is it not 
 now near being demonstrated, that man as body 
 and spirit, as conscience and speech, has been 
 evolved from lower forms of being, with all 
 his furnishings of aspirations, categories and 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 17 
 
 principles ; and is it not also a matter of grave 
 question, whether he can long remain in his 
 present transition state — whether, having been 
 evolved from some very indeterminate germ, 
 he may not be evolved into something alto- 
 gether impalpable? In short, is not man 
 ranked very low in the present estimates of 
 comparative science, and is he not in danger of 
 being very soon left out of them altogether? 
 
 Somewhat after this fashion ran our med- 
 itations respecting nature and man; according 
 to which the two are brought into sharp an- 
 tagonism as objects of certain and trustworthy 
 knowledge, and as claiming attention from 
 the modern philosopher and educator. Al- 
 ready in the departments of study and 
 of education, an active controversy has 
 
i8 
 
 THE SCIENXES OF NATURE 
 
 sprung up which threatens to bring on a 
 sharp litigation, in which the parties are to be 
 the Sciences of Nature and the Science of 
 Man. At present the odds arc largely 
 against man, and we fear that soon it may be 
 claimed that man has no rights which the 
 student of nature is bound to respect ; that if 
 science requires it, man must go to the wall. 
 There is no telling how soon he may be 
 summoned to allow himself quietly to be 
 shoved out of being under the operation of 
 natural selection, or to be sublimated into 
 some sort of impalpable incense upon the 
 altar of scientific progress. 
 
 Under these unequal odds I bring to this 
 ancient and honorable Philosophical So- 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 19 
 
 ciety * — a society which originated when 
 philosophy had another meaning than is 
 claimed for it at present — a plea for the science 
 of man ; not as against the sciences of na- 
 ture to whose claims I have already confessed 
 my allegiance, but as essential to these sciences, 
 and as, therefore, incapable of being ever 
 superseded, or set aside, or left behind in 
 their most splendid achievements. I would 
 even be so audacious as to seek to show that 
 in all these man must be a constant quantity, 
 and that the elements which he furnishes can 
 never be dispensed with ; that, as the sciences 
 of nature make progress, these elements will 
 come more and more distinctly into recog- 
 nition; that as Nature is more profoundly 
 
 * Of the ^. B. K. of Harvard and Trinity. 
 
20 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 21 
 
 studied, the results of this study will bring 
 Man's capacities and endowments more dis- 
 tinctly into view. I would demonstrate 
 that man must be thoroughly understood 
 and nobly confided in, if nature is to be inter- 
 preted in its widest relations, and our con- 
 fidence in the principles and laws which are 
 essential to the science of nature is to be 
 surely established. I offer this plea not in 
 the interests of strife, but in the interests ot 
 peace ; not to gain a one-sided victory, but to 
 show that no action can hold between the two 
 parties, because thfe sciences of nature and of 
 man can never be at variance. I would also show 
 that as there can be no science of nature which 
 does not recognize the science of man, and as 
 the study of nature cannot be prosecuted to 
 
 the neglect of man, so the study of man will 
 be always furthered by a generous study of 
 nature ; that as on the broader field of invest- 
 igation and culture, so on the narrower field of 
 education and discipline, the scientific study of 
 nature and the scientific study of man are 
 mutually dependent and mutually helpful. 
 
 We enforce our argument first of all by an 
 analysis of the conception of science. What 
 science is, is not so easily stated as would 
 seem likely from the freedom with which the 
 term is used, or the readiness, not to say the 
 flippancy, with which its authority is enforced. 
 The most cautious scientist would doubtless 
 concede that nature furnishes the materials and 
 viari arranges them ; more exactly, the ob- 
 
r 
 
 22 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 23 
 
 serving man collects facts, and the reflecting 
 man explains facts. We speak freely of the 
 careless glance of the one and the sagacious 
 insight of the other. We talk of the secrets 
 which nature has been carefully hiding for 
 generations, and has been reluctantly forced to 
 yield at the bidding of one who had over- 
 heard the charmed words at which the doors 
 of her treasure-house must fly open. If we are 
 sufficiently curious to ask what science is, 
 every answer which we give must carry us 
 back to man as an agent who thinks natural 
 facts into scientific theories, who explains 
 phenomena by laws, and founds systems on 
 principles. This question, it is true, may be 
 curious rather than useful. It were too much 
 to expect that Newton should pause in the 
 
 tremulous suggestion that first connected the 
 detention of the revolving moon with the 
 force that brings down the falling stone, in 
 order to ask whence the suggestion was in- 
 spired and how it could be justified ; or that 
 the ardent Davy should have held back from 
 the brave experiment that literally unearthed 
 the bounding potassium, in order to perfect 
 a metaphysical analysis of the processes which 
 discovered or the reasons which foretold it,* 
 or that Kirchhoff should have been diverted 
 
 * For the (lotails of tliii^ (liifcovery and experiment, see Life of 
 Sir Humphrey Diiv'v, Chap. III. We quote the following; "I Lave 
 been toll by Mr. Edmund Davy, his* relative and then assistant . . 
 that when he [Sir numphrey] saw the minute jflobulci? of potassinm 
 burst throujfh the cruh't of potash, and take fire as they entered the 
 atnv)8pherc, he ctmld not contain his joy — he actually bounded 
 about the room in ecstatic delight; and that some little time was 
 required for him to compose himself sufficiently to continue the 
 experiments.'' 
 
24 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 25 
 
 from the daring gaze by which he would read 
 the secret of the sun in order to interpret 
 the thoughts which emboldened him to the 
 effort. But how is it after a discovery has 
 been made, or a great secret of nature has 
 been mastered ? Then not only curiosity turns 
 from the result to the process by which it has 
 been achieved ; but the anxiety to make sure 
 that the jewel wrested from nature has been 
 lawfully obtained and may be safely held, 
 impels to the earnest inquiry whether the 
 charm by which we won it was whispered us 
 in our ear byt he honest spirit of nature, or 
 by some mischief-loving imp of the mocking 
 phantasy. So it happens that long after 
 Newton*s discovery has become a common- 
 place to the school-boy, and Davy's experiment 
 
 is repeated every day by the shop-lad, and the re- 
 velations of the spectrum-analysis have enabled 
 the novice glibly to discourse of the secrets 
 of the sun, that then the true and earnest 
 philosopher carefully retraces the path which 
 has conducted science to the dizzy heights on 
 which she stands, and tremblingly inquires. 
 How came I hither? Is the standing ground 
 firm? Are the objects which I seem to see 
 the firm and solid land, or only a delusive 
 mirage ? 
 
 Now, if we ask these questions, we must 
 answer them ; and if we answer them, as we 
 contend, we must study the nature of man. 
 We cannot justify the processes by which we 
 interpret nature, unless we scrutinize the 
 processes of the human spirit which performs 
 
26 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 27 
 
 them, and search after the principles and 
 faiths which these processes assume and rest 
 upon. We cannot discover and vindicate the 
 ^rounds on which our inquiries rest, without 
 findinir them imbedded in man*s being as 
 axioms and principles which, as the result of 
 further scrutiny, we find that he can neither 
 question nor set aside. The foundations of the 
 science of nature in the last analysis are dis- 
 covered in the ineradicable beliefs and convic- 
 tions of the human spirit, and it is only by the 
 earnest and careful study of this spirit that we 
 can find them, and, having found them, can 
 recognize them as the principles by which we 
 interpret both nature and man. 
 
 Were we to proceed further in the an- 
 alysis of science, we should add that science 
 
 objectively viewed is universally conceived as 
 related knozvledge. Those who limit it most 
 narrowly, assert Ihat it gives us phenomena 
 connected by relations. But facts or pheno- 
 mena do not connect themselves. To con- 
 ceive that they do or can, were to fall into the 
 worst and emptiest trick of personifying an 
 abstraction, against which this class of philoso- 
 phers are the most earnest in their cautions. 
 They require an agent to do this work, and 
 to do it, not after the caprices of an infant's 
 or an idiot's handling, but by wise and intel- 
 ligent combinations. Whence do these rela- 
 tions — these mystic bonds of science — pro- 
 ceed ? The interpreting mind does, in some 
 sense, find them already in its'hands. Whether 
 they are evolved from its own experience 
 
28 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 as the progressive acquisitions of associa- 
 tion, that cannot be broken, as Mill, Bain, and 
 Spencer would teach us ; whether like a mystic 
 veil, they are thrown over the otherwise 
 chaotic phenomena of both matter and spirit 
 by the formative energy of man, as Kant con- 
 fidently suggests ; or whether they are at once 
 the conditions of thought to man, because 
 they are conditions of being in nature and 
 God, as the wit of common sense and the re- 
 search of the profoundest philosophy declare, 
 these relations must, in the study of nature, be 
 confidingly applied by man as fast and as far 
 as the chaos which bewilders the infant and 
 overaws the savage, is thought into a cosmos 
 by man's interpreting reason. If the in- 
 ductive sciences claim allegiance from the 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 29 
 
 common sense of mankind, the inductive 
 method must be justified to its most critical, and 
 even its sceptical analysis. But the inductive 
 method can in no way be justified, except as 
 the intellect falls back upon its own underly- 
 ing faiths concerning God and nature. Brief- 
 ly, an inductive science of nature presupposes a 
 sciettce of induction, and a science of induction 
 presupposes a science of man. 
 
 We urge still further that the history of the 
 sciences ^y nature illustrates their near re- 
 lation to the science of man. Before Socrates, 
 the physics were as crude as the metaphys- 
 ics. Both alike were raw guess-work, 
 founded on hasty resemblances more rude- 
 ly interpreted and generalized. From such 
 speculations about matter and spirit 
 
30 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 Socrates wisely withdrew his thoughts, that 
 he might first understand himself as near- 
 er and more intelligible to himself than nature. 
 But in learning how to study himself, he also 
 learned the secret of knowincr other thintrs. 
 If we may trust the brief expositions of Xcno- 
 phon, and the embellished dialogues of Plato, 
 he learned the rules of cautious observation, 
 wise definition, and comprehensive comparison, 
 and rigidly enforced them as the conditions of 
 all trustworthy knowledge. The Socratic 
 method was first applied by him to man, and 
 what concerns man; but the disciples of 
 Socrates, having learned the secret of wise ob- 
 servation, could not but apply it to nature 
 forthwith ; and out of this Socratic school came 
 the ambitious cosmogony of Plato, the per- 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 31 
 
 fected logic, and the sober and in many respects 
 solid physics of Aristotle, with the beginnings of 
 that geometry which soon was so nearly per- 
 fected as not to be disdained hy Newton and 
 La Place, — the geometry which the modern 
 schools that are most jealous of the study of 
 man, rightly and earnestly insist on as the only 
 condition of science, writing over their portals as 
 Plato did, " Let no one enter here who cannot 
 
 :«z, »♦ 
 
 geometrize. 
 
 As we trace the beginnings of modern 
 physics, we find that the true method of inter- 
 preting nature was sought for by Bacon and 
 Descartes in the nature of man, by the first 
 impliedly and yet abundantly, by the second 
 confessedly and formally. The present cen- 
 tury, so distinguished for the achievements 
 
32 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 of physics, numbers not a few among the most 
 successful students of nature whose attention 
 has been given to the scrutiny of the methods 
 of science itself. We name Davy, Herschel, 
 Whewell, Agassiz, Faraday and Tyndall, 
 all of whom have judged the science of induc- 
 tion to be the most fundamental, the most 
 wide-reaching and fascinating of sciences. 
 Not a few, like Davy, have combined poetic 
 and metaphysical tastes, with a genius for 
 physics. We may say almost universally that 
 men great in discovery and profound in 
 philosophic research, have always been forward 
 to recognize that man must furnish the 
 key to the mysteries of nature, he himself 
 being the greatest mystery of all. There 
 have been many so-called physicists who 
 
 » 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 33 
 
 were content to find or take their for- 
 mulae and principles at second hand, and work 
 them out in problems and experiments, 
 many who have hastily borrowed or stolen 
 them from some crude and effete meta- 
 physics, but never was there a philosopher of 
 nature who looked for a theory of his science, 
 who did not believe in a science of man. 
 
 Our position is still further confirmed by 
 the defects in this regard of some oi the recent 
 philosophies "whxch. are now attracting general 
 attention. These philosophies have these 
 features in common : they all claim to be con- 
 structed in the spirit of the inductive method, 
 and after the analogies of modern physics, 
 and to be justified by actual experiment. 
 
34 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 35 
 
 But they all can be shown to be seriously de- 
 fective, for the reason that their science of 
 man is too narrow or erroneous to furnish a 
 solid basis for any science of nature whatever. 
 
 We begin with the philosophy which is now 
 in the mouth of every man, the so-called 
 Positive Philosophy ; and to be both discriminat- 
 ing and just, we will first notice it in that 
 form in which it was taught by its original 
 expounder. The fundamental doctrines of 
 Comte and the characteristics of the Positive 
 Philosophy, are thus summed up by Mill : 
 ** We have no knowledge of anything but 
 phenomena ; (and our knowledge of phenom- 
 ena is relative not absolute.) We know not 
 the essence nor the real mode of production 
 
 >l^ 
 
 ; J' 
 
 I 
 
 of any fact, but only its relations to other 
 facts in the way of succession, or of similitude. 
 These relations are constant, that is, always 
 the same in the same circumstances. The 
 constant resemblances which link phenomena 
 together and the constant sequences which 
 unite them as antecedent and consequent, 
 arc termed their laws. The laws of phenom- 
 ena are all we know respecting them. Their 
 essential nature, and their ultimate causes, 
 either efficient or final, are unknown and in- 
 scrutable to us." * Of this Positive Philoso- 
 phy, as thus expounded, we observe that it 
 is properly if not emphatically metaphysical. 
 Against this charge Comte would earnestly 
 
 • J. S. Mill, the PoBitive Philogophy of Comte, pp. 7 and 8. Am. 
 
 Ed. 
 
36 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 protest in the words, " Have I not demon- 
 strated by a broad and decisive induction 
 that the human mind must have passed 
 through the stages of theology and metaphysics 
 before it could reach the apotheosis of positiv- 
 ism? If this induction is good, I cannot be 
 remanded to the condition which I have already 
 outgrown.** We do not care to question 
 whether this historic induction of Comte is 
 correct, concerning which his own adherents 
 hold diverse opinions, nor do we urge that he 
 has no right, according to his fundamental 
 principles, to make any historic induction at 
 all ; we simply assert the fact that the positive 
 philosophy is a metaphysical phenomenon. To 
 urge that it cannot be, because it does not 
 occur in the right order of time, is to urge 
 
 If 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 
 37 
 
 that a patient cannot have scarlet fever or the 
 measles, because the same patient, accord- 
 ing to the theory of these diseases, can have 
 neither a second time. It is, to apply the 
 a priori method, to set aside a positive 
 phenomenon or fact. That the positive phi- 
 losophy is metaphysical, in the proper sense of 
 the term, is too obvious to admit of question. 
 Its problan is metaphysical. It proposes not 
 only to discover the criteria of the processes 
 which are common to all the special sciences, 
 but it sets these forth as the criteria of every 
 true science. Its method is metaphysical in so 
 far as it passes each of these sciences in review, 
 and reapplies these principles to each for its 
 subsequent reconstruction and correction. 
 Like every other metaphysical system, it con- 
 
38 
 
 THE SCIENXES OF NATURE 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 39 
 
 cerns itself with relations. But constant rela- 
 tions are what in all systems exalt observed 
 phenomena to the dignity of science. Other 
 systems recognize more relations— those of 
 causation or force— mayhap those of design. 
 Comte*s metaphysics hold to fewer, those of 
 sequence and similitude. To use a figure of 
 clothing, while other systems honor, by recog- 
 nition and use, the habiliments which obvious 
 necessity and universal usage have sanctioned, 
 this sect appear among the sans culottes of 
 philosophers, on the principle that the fewer 
 clothes we have, the nearer we come to naked 
 truth, and the less occasion we have to look 
 after our clothes, or the less we are tempted 
 to think more of the clothes than of tht: man. 
 Mill, indeed, while he concedes (p. 8) that 
 
 (i 
 
 Comte, without knowing it, accepted and 
 sought to solve the problem of metaphysics, 
 contends that he rightly defined and avoided 
 metaphysics, in the technical sense of the habit 
 of" conceiving of mental abstractions as real en- 
 tities, which could exert power, and produce 
 phenomena, etc. " That this tendency to hy- 
 postasize abstractions into real agencies has 
 prevailed in all ages, we admit ; that Comte and 
 Comte's disciples have not escaped its influ- 
 ence, it would be easy to show. No class of 
 reasoners seem to exemplify it more emi- 
 nently. Every question which you ask them 
 beyond the charmed circle of the formulae 
 which the master magician has drawn around 
 them by wand and charm, is answered by 
 the stereotype phrasci; of sequence and sim- 
 
40 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 41 
 
 ilitude, till it would seem as though these 
 relations had become personified into the 
 living forces on which the universe depends 
 for its existence and ordering. 
 
 But all this is by the way : the only point 
 which we care to urge against Comte, is that he 
 does not recognize the presence and the 
 agency of man ; that he attempts to furnish a 
 philosophy of science which leaves entirely 
 out of view the prime element in science, the 
 nature of knowledge as explained by the 
 nature of men as qualified to know. Man 
 is not recognized by Comte * as such a be- 
 ing at all, but only as a mass of nervous 
 substance, incased in a material shell, the 
 
 ♦ The IhHtive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, translated by Harriet 
 Martineap. Book V, Chapter VII. 
 
 m. 
 
 i\\ 
 
 functions of which, so far as they are deemed 
 worthy of notice, are simply physiological, 
 with the added capacity to expand or modify 
 the incasing skull. Even the poor compliment 
 is not formally paid to this nervous substance 
 of being able to respond to the relations of se- 
 quence and similitude in material phenomena. 
 Much less is it honestly conceded, what Comte*s 
 own system requires, that this mass has the ad- 
 ditional power to observe the relations of con- 
 stant sequence and similitude between its own 
 material condition and any one of these acts 
 of response or observation. All this is over- 
 looked, and superficially huddled away into 
 the general statement that what are called 
 psychological processes, are properly included 
 under biological phenomena ; and this by the 
 
42 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 man who claims for the functions of his own 
 brain, the magic power to discover the follies 
 of all the preceding philosophies, and to pre- 
 vent all error in succeeding ages ! Man, as 
 treated by Comte, is not even cavalierly bowed 
 out from the ivory gate of this palace of mag- 
 nificent pretensions, but the door is contempt- 
 uously and violen'rly thrust in his face ; and 
 then, inasmuch as there can be no science and 
 no philosophy of science, in which the presence 
 of man must not somehow be implied, he is 
 smuggled in by the meanest of the servants 
 through the narrowest postern that was ever 
 devised. 
 
 Much may be truly said in praise of Comte 
 and the positive philosophy. The daring of 
 his problem, his exact and manifold knowl- 
 
 i 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 43 
 
 \ 
 
 fli 
 
 1 1 i 
 
 \:v. 
 
 edge of the special sciences, the breadth of his 
 generalizations, especially in mathematics and 
 physics, the cool severity of his stony-eyed 
 criticism, all these deserve the highest com- 
 mendation. But the naive and narrow sim--^ 
 plicity which leaves out of sight man or 
 the knowing agent, in a philosophy of knowl- 
 ed2fe, and the unconscious innocence of his 
 metaphysical abnegation of metaphysics should 
 claim no man's admiration. The student of 
 nature, or of history, who is content with a 
 formula to work by, may be satisfied with the 
 positive philosophy, but any one who looks 
 for a well-rounded theory of all human knowl- 
 edge, and a comprehensive statement of the 
 axioms and the principles w^hich it involves, 
 cannot but be disappointed with Comte's 
 
 \'\ 
 
 • ( 
 
44 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 45 
 
 teachings, and reject him as a trustworthy 
 expounder of Philosophy. 
 
 yo/in Stttart Mill, the follower, yet critic 
 of Comte, has distinctly recognized some of 
 his defects, and has attempted to supply 
 them. But he has failed in four essential par- 
 ticulars. He has neither given a satisfactory 
 theory of the mind, nor of matter, nor of the 
 process, nor of the axiom sof induction itself. 
 Though he contends most stoutly for the legiti- 
 macy of psychological observation, and the 
 necessity of a correct theory of the soul as 
 fundamental to induction, he provides no such 
 theory ; as how could he, if he limits this sci- 
 ence, after the dictum of his master, to 
 phenomena and the relations of sequence and 
 
 
 similitude ? The knowing agent that must not 
 only build up science, but provide its founda- 
 tion principles. Mill resolves into succes- 
 sive states of consciousness ; he even calls 
 these feelings, which are wrought by we know 
 not what. He defines the agent that believes 
 in the spectroscope, and is not dazed by the 
 sun, " as a Series of Feelings with a background 
 of possibilities of feeling.*** We do not stay 
 to inquire what the word background can 
 mean, unless it be the knowing ego fa- 
 miliar to common sense and not unneces- 
 sary to philosophy, which is smuggled 
 in through the back-door of a vaguely meta- 
 • phorical term ; nor whether possibilitus does 
 
 « Examination qf Sir WilUam Hamillon's PAUofopAy, Chapter 
 zU. 
 
i 
 
 46 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 not involve, while it seems to hide the rela- 
 tion of causation or force, against which Mill 
 protests. We only observe that it is more 
 creditable to the candor of Mill than to his 
 acuteness, that, on second thought, he com- 
 pletes this definition of the soul by calling it 
 also "a series of feelings which is aware of it- 
 self as past and future." * Here again we 
 have another example of this subreption by a 
 postern, of the notions of the soul itself 
 and its relations to time, both of which 
 had formally been discharged by the front 
 passage as superfluous. More amazing 
 still is it, that after making this correction, 
 he recovers his sense of consistency, or, 
 rather, demonstrates his own insensibility to 
 
 7'S. THE SCIENCE OF MAX. 
 
 47 
 
 the absurdity of his position, by confessing 
 that "we are reduced to the alternative of 
 believing that the mind or fj;v is something 
 different from any scries of feelings, or possi- 
 bilities of them, or of accepting the paradox, 
 that something which, rx hypothcsi, is but a 
 series of feelings can be aware of itself as a 
 series. "•^' Which of these alternatives docs he 
 embrace? Does he adhere to the one construc- 
 tion which his formal definitions, as well as 
 the whole drift of his philosophy requires 
 him to support, or docs he frankly concede 
 that he bch'evcs in a mind as an agent, an ex- 
 isting being, which is something more than a 
 series of feelings ? He does neither, but pro- 
 ceeds to affirm : ** The truth is that we arc 
 
 • mdem. 
 
 ♦ im<i. 
 
48 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 here face to face with that final inexplicability, 
 at which we inevitably arrive when we reach ul- 
 timate facts/'* But why not accept the facts 
 and shape one's definitions accordingly, in- 
 stead of constructing a definition of the soul, 
 and building a theory of induction upon it, 
 which must be split upon these facts. He pre- 
 fers to concede his failure in the extorted 
 acknowledgment, " I do not profess to ac- 
 count for the belief in mind." f We had not 
 expected such a confession without repent- 
 ance, and, what is worse, without a sense of 
 the need of repentance, from the modern law- 
 giver of scientific method ; from the new 
 Bacon, who has codified the rules for the 
 
 *Ibid, 
 ti&W. Bd Land, edition. P. 8. 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 49 
 
 inductive study of nature ; from the plausible 
 and pertinacious antagonist of what he calls d 
 priori metaphysics ! 
 
 Not only has Mill entirely failed, and by his 
 own confession, to provide a mind which can in- 
 terpret matter, but he has failed as signally to 
 provide for our belief in matter, or the universe 
 of nature, which man is to interpret. Though 
 he claims, by eminence, to be the philosopher 
 of things,* though he denounces with a slight 
 disdain those \vho prefer thoughts to things, 
 he makes no provision for our knowledge of 
 things, or our belief in the material world. 
 His formal definition of matter (while it is 
 vastly more vague and unsatisfactory) is as 
 purely idealistic as that of Berkeley or Collier, 
 
 • LogiCy B. i., 0. it 
 
so 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 51 
 
 Matter he defines as ** a Permanent Possibility 
 of Sensations." * He concedes that this 
 definition would satisfy Berkeley, and that in 
 any other sense than this he does not believe 
 in matter. He did not seem at first to be 
 aware that through the word pcrmmicnt time 
 has stealthily crept into his definition, and 
 that possibility is not too narrow to let in 
 causation, that dreaded metaphysical entity. 
 He makes a fearful nod, when he says 
 squarely, **the possibilities are conceived 
 as standing to the actual sensations in the 
 relation of a cause to its effects * His 
 assurance culminates when he refers our faith 
 in the permanence of these possibilities to the 
 
 * Exam. etc. Chap, xi. 
 
 * Exam. Chap. xi. 
 
 I 
 
 assumption that sensations similar to our own 
 are experienced from material objects by 
 other beings. " The world of possible sensa- 
 tions succeeding one another, according 
 to laws, is as much in other beings as 
 it is in me; it has, therefore^ an existence 
 outside of me, it is an external world."* 
 As if the existence of other beings, with 
 the relations of outside and inside., were not 
 the things to be accounted for, and as if, 
 through the door opened to admit this item of 
 proof, space and its relations, including mat- 
 ter, had not marched boldly in, after both had 
 been formally excluded, till they could be 
 formally introduced by a philosophical ticket 
 of leave ! 
 
52 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 But allowing Mr. Mill to believe in man and 
 nature, as much or as little as he will, we in- 
 quire, with greater earnestness, what is his the- 
 ory of induction, i. e., how does he explain the 
 process, and on what foundations does he rest 
 the structure ? These questions are somewhat 
 important, when the scientist requires me to 
 believe in the spectroscope. Especially are 
 they important in the view of the neophyte, 
 whose faith in science is weak, and who con- 
 siders all at once the number of assumptions 
 that enter into the result,— the truth of gravita- 
 tion, the theory of light, the chemical analysis 
 by light of burning bodies and gases, and, 
 above all, when he takes into account the 
 enormous distances, and the subtle indica- 
 tions. It is not wonderful that he asks " how 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 53 
 
 and why is it that I am justified in accepting 
 this wonderful story, as enchanting, if it be not 
 as fabulous, as the story of the *' Lamp of Al- 
 addin?** Pray, Mr. Mill, who knowest every 
 word and syllable of the magic spell, repeat it 
 to me letter by letter and word by word, con- 
 firm the steps of my tottering faith, trace out 
 for me the subtle and narrow path, along 
 which the philosopher has reached the stars, 
 and even cast himself into the abyss beyond. 
 
 How does Mr. Mill answer these entreaties? 
 " Induction, my son, in philosophical language, 
 is the result of repeated experiences of sensa- 
 tions, so closely combined as to have become 
 practically inseparable. We learn in this way 
 to make the familiar and the near to represent 
 the unfrequent and remote, according to cer- 
 
54 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 tain axioms and principles, concerning the uni- 
 formities and laws of nature, and the relations 
 of time and space, which give mathematical 
 truths and relations." " But whence are these 
 ultimate beliefs derived ?" To this Mr. Mill 
 has no other reply ; '' all these are derived from 
 induction, even the very principles that are 
 used in induction, and the very beliefs that 
 are most sacred concerning the sequences and 
 similitudes of phenomena — these all are the 
 products of induction ; even though they are 
 the conditions of induction; and all come from 
 inseparable associations." " Is this all that can 
 be said of them ? How then can I trust them, 
 supposing I have not yet learned to associate 
 these things together ; or what if they should be 
 differently connected in other minds?" To this 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 55 
 
 he would reply, '' The last is supposable ; and 
 the consequence would be, that those minds 
 would have different beliefs conccrninirthe laws 
 of nature, and even concerning the fixedness of 
 any laws of nature, or the relations of number 
 and magnitude. It is supposable that to the 
 inhabitants of another planet, the inseparable 
 associations should be so strangely mixed and 
 readjusted, that they should multiply ///nv 
 and /o?ir into eleven^ and should conceive, that 
 to issue ten per cent, dividends signifies to steal 
 the capital ten times over. Or the inhabitants 
 of another might be trained to believe that two 
 straight lines might so inclose a space, that a 
 railway charter from New York to Erie might 
 be mathematically demonstrated to cover all 
 the adjacent territory indefinitely in every 
 
56 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE, 
 
 direetion. But to correct all such abuses, he 
 would add, ** you can use experiments and they 
 will verify all correctly joined associations, and 
 expose those which are false." But, urges the 
 novice, I can make but few experiments, and 
 concerning objects of limited reach ; and what 
 I am required to believe is a long way off. I 
 cannot test the assertion that sodium is actu- 
 ally burning in the sun, the indications are so 
 very remote, though very plausible. I can burn 
 the sodium in my lamp, and as I watch the 
 spectrum, I can refract another spectrum from 
 the sun ; but how shall 1 pass from what is 
 united in the one to what is unknown in the 
 other ? Nay, how do I know that what you 
 sometimes call causation and at other times call 
 sequence, prevails in the sun at all? This 
 
 rs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 57 
 
 question is so important, and the answer so 
 fundamental to the neophyte's faith, that 
 Mr. Mill would probably refer him to chap- 
 ter and verse in his " System of Logic," 
 and read as follows : " In distant parts of the 
 stellar regions, where the phenomena may be 
 entirely unlike those with which we are ac- 
 quainted, it would be folly to affirm confi- 
 dently that this general law of causation 
 prevails any more than those special ones, 
 which we have found to hold universally on 
 our own planet. The uniformity in the suc- 
 cession of events, otherwise called the law of 
 causation, must not be received as a law of the 
 universe, but of that portion of it only which 
 is within the range of our means of sure ob- 
 servation, with a reasonable degree of exten- 
 
S8 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 sion to adjacent cases. To extend it further, 
 
 is to make a supposition without evidence, 
 
 »t 
 
 etc. * " But if all this is so, I may as well give 
 up my faith in the solar spectrum. Sodium 
 burns in the lamp, and its flame can be defined, 
 but to conclude that sodium burns in the sun, 
 because the sun emits a similar light, does not 
 seem reasonable ; the cases are far enough 
 from being adjacent, and the circumstances 
 are, in manifold particulars, very unlike." Mill's 
 very slender basis for inductive reasoning 
 would seem to be as suitable to confirm 
 the doubter concerning some new discov- 
 ery in physics* as the writings of Colenso to 
 strengthen faith in the Pentateuch, or of Strauss 
 and Baur to lead to confidence in the Gospel 
 
 By»t«m (tf Logic B. lii, C. xxi, Sec. 5. 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 S9 
 
 History. But the defects in his philosophy of 
 induction are necessary consequences of his 
 defective and uncertain science of man's power 
 to know. The signal failure of one of the 
 most elaborate attempts that has ever been 
 made to furnish a scientific foundation for 
 the science of nature is explained by its de- 
 fective and uncertain science of man. 
 
 The defects of Mill's philosophical writings 
 are the more conspicuous, the more sharply 
 they are contrasted with their manifold excel- 
 lencies. His rules for the practice of induc- 
 tion are comprehensive and sagacious, and 
 they are amply illustrated and applied. His 
 observations upon classification and laniruaire 
 are rich contributions to philosophical litera- 
 ture. His acuteness in criticising, and his skill 
 
6o 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 in exposing the vulnerable points of antago- 
 nistic philosophies, as also his admirable candor 
 in confessing the difficulties of his own, with his 
 something more than admirable unconscious- 
 ness that his confessions amount to a com- 
 plete surrender of everything for which he 
 would contend, forces his reader at times to 
 exclaim, miranda simplicitas si non sancta. 
 Like Comte, he protests that he does not 
 discuss metaphysics, but only logic; striving 
 to set up a distinction between the reasons 
 of the logical rules which he professes to 
 expound, and the underlying philosophical 
 axioms which he styles transcendental meta- 
 physics. And yet these he is constantly obtrud- 
 ing and endeavoring to account for ; contending 
 that our ideas of time and space, the conceptions 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 6i 
 
 and axioms of mathematics, the belief in 
 causation, in induction, and in the uniformity 
 of the laws of nature, are all derived from 
 experience ; while experience, with its author- 
 ity for the distant and the future, is the 
 product of associations that have become so 
 inseparably blended that they cannot be got 
 rid of. 
 
 From Mill, we proceed to the ccrebralists^ 
 to Alexandce Bain and his school, who 
 limit the science of man to the analysis of 
 the brain and its functions, and claim 
 that the so-called physiological psychology is 
 the only basis for a solid science of the soul. 
 This point we shall not contest; we urge 
 only, that if the basis is broad enough for a 
 science of man, ?t is neither broad nor deep 
 
62 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 enough to support a science of nature. Let it 
 be granted that brain convolutions and nerve 
 vibrations or nerve growths may account 
 for the differences and developments of the 
 human soul ; that vision is simply a nervous re- 
 sponse to the undulating light, and touch is an 
 adjustment of particles in the innerved cuticle 
 in accordance with the molecular agitations in 
 the solid with which it comes in contact. Let 
 it be granted that memory, imagination, classi- 
 fication, and reasoning, are but material forces 
 newly correlated in the form of nervous move- 
 ments, and that what is called self-consciousness 
 IS one set of brain fibres dancing a mazy anti- 
 strophe to similar fibres in a corresponding 
 brain lobe. Granting that all of man which 
 we call thought, emotion, and aspiration, is 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 63 
 
 reducible to the workings of mechanical stat- 
 ics and dynamics, we fail altogether to explain 
 how man, so constituted and so acting, can 
 form a science of nature ; how Newton came 
 to connect the falling stone with the moon 
 steadily detained and impetuously struggling 
 in its path, and ventured to write down the 
 law of each in a brief algebraic formula ; nor 
 how Kirchhoff happened to imagine and was 
 inspired to believe, that he could see the burn- 
 ing sodium in the molten crater of the sun, 
 and could follow the hydrogen that flashes in 
 jets along its surface. Let cerebral physiology 
 do what it will in its movements against a bet- 
 ter theory of man : Let it call into its aid the 
 portentous battalions of the correlated forces ; 
 let unconscious cerebration dart in and out 
 
I 
 
 64 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 of the conflict with its wily and quick-mov- 
 ing cavalry — one and all fail utterly to de- 
 molish the solid squares of convictions on 
 which the intellectual soul must plant itself 
 when it make s good a grand discovery, like 
 those of Newton, or Davy, or Faraday, or 
 Kirchhoflf. The eloquent John Tyndall has 
 truly said, more boldly perhaps, than he was 
 aware, and forgetful of consistency with many 
 of his teachings : *' It is by a kind of inspiration 
 that we rise from the wise and sedulous con- 
 templation of facts to the principles on which 
 they depend." ** This passage from facts to 
 principles is called induction, which, in its 
 highest form, is inspiration.'* * Whatever else 
 may be true of the brain philosophy, it can 
 
 ♦ John Tyndall. Fracrm^nU of ScUnce^ p. 601 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 65 
 
 never explain and validate induction, with the 
 mystery of its insight into nature's secrets 
 and the mastery of its power over nature's 
 forces. 
 
 From Comte and Mill, and the cerebral- 
 ists, we proceed to Herbert Spencer^ who claims 
 to be more profound and comprehensive 
 than them all, for whom his adherents 
 claim that, like Kant, he is the zermabncndc 
 Philosoph — the all-crushing of these times ; 
 of whom it is asserted, that he takes 
 into his system all that is true in the old 
 metaphysical and the new positive and 
 brain philosophies, and causes everything to 
 reappear with a profoundcr meaning and a 
 more catholic application. We cannot charge 
 
y 
 
 66 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 against Spencer that he neglects or dishonors 
 the science of man. He stands foremost 
 among modern writers in recognizing psychol- 
 ogy as fundamental to all philosophy, whether 
 of matter or spirit. He may be said to accept 
 spiritual phenomena as having existence in 
 their own right, and as claiming authority over 
 other facts, so far as they furnish the princi- 
 ples for every department of philosophy. He 
 recognizes fully the necessity that certain 
 principles should be necessary and axiomatic. 
 So far all is hopeful and seemingly all that a 
 sound philosophy could desire. But we soon 
 discover that these fair promises are sacrificed 
 to the merciless requirements of a meta- 
 physical hypothesis, which is as remorseless 
 in its exactions as it is usurping in its au- 
 
 f 
 
 • 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 67 
 
 thority. The /aza of evolution^ acting as a 
 movement of differentiation and integration, is 
 ushered upon the scene, destined, like Saturn, 
 to devour its own children as fast as they are 
 produced. It is itself not proved. It does not 
 claim to be self-evident, but simply that, 
 like Mill's induction, it is capable of being 
 verified by every individual instance to which 
 it can be applied. Its terms also are so broad as 
 to be capable of a great variety of significa- 
 tions. Evolution, differentiation, and integra- 
 tion, are words of many-sided import, as 
 Spencer's use of them satisfactorily illustrates. 
 Evolution is now treated as though it were a 
 living force, endowed with the energy, 
 and invested with the wisdom of a personal 
 creator; and again it sinks to an innocent 
 
68 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 symbolic formula. Differentiation and in- 
 tegration now rise to the dignity and mystery 
 of organizing forces, and anon they sink 
 into the meaningless platitudes of insignifi- 
 cant logical generalizations. It is not surprising 
 that with phrases so vague in their import and 
 so plastic in their application, the mysteries 
 of the universe are often explained by Spencer 
 in the manner of a dexterous juggler — as 
 plausibly to the eye and as unsatisfactorily 
 to the mind. 
 
 But one thing, at least, Mr. Spencer has 
 not explained, nor does he in any wise provide 
 for; and that is the possibility of a science of 
 nature, and simply because by his theory the 
 principles on which such a science rests are 
 themselves but transient waves, thrown up for 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 69 
 
 the moment by an ever-heaving and new-evolv- 
 ing sea. According to Spencer, man as a differ- 
 entiated and integrated type of being, is physio- 
 logically evolved from a less complex type of 
 being. Intelligence is a more complex evolution 
 of life, and life is the joint product of interior 
 and exterior relations. Even the axioms of 
 intelligence, which Spencer had recognized as 
 the necessary and ultimate laws of thinking ; 
 these obey the same law. At first they are 
 sprouting tendencies towards scientific axioms, 
 which are gradually fixed and hardened in the 
 brain, so as to strengthen with the growth, and 
 be transmitted with the progress of successive 
 generations. The conceptions of time and 
 space, and the relations they involve, follow 
 this rule, being perfected and adjusted by a 
 
70 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 long course of physiological evolutions. This 
 is man according to Spencer. Is he competent 
 to attain to a science of nature ? Behold him 
 on some bright morning of the evolving a^ons 
 just ushered into being — ** like the herald Mer- 
 cury, new-lighted on some heaven-kissing hill/' 
 which he spurns with his impatient foot, as 
 just about to leave the earth for some higher 
 sphere. He looks out upon nature, that he 
 may interpret its laws, he geometrizes among 
 the stars like a God, he weighs the mountains 
 in balances, he takes up the isles as a very little 
 thing, he reads the history of the earth turn- 
 ing back its rocky laminae one by one and 
 interpreting the characters that speak from 
 each. He catches the light, and unfolds it 
 into spectra of beauty, finding in each 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 71 
 
 one of its glowing bars some secret of 
 nature's hidden magic. He studies the 
 composition of matter, its crystalline order- 
 ings of method and symmetry, and its chemical 
 affinities and transmutations. He attempts the 
 more difficult problem of life ; he pauses in as- 
 tonishment before the profounder mystery of 
 the soul. Next he essays to account for the 
 origin of these varied forms of being, and by 
 one daring sweep of generalization, he thinks 
 to comprehend and explain the universe. By 
 the magic of a formula, as vague as it is broad, 
 he thinks he discovers that matter and spirit, 
 that thoughts and things, are evolved by a self- 
 moving tendency, after which life is lifted out 
 from death, and intelligence springs forth 
 from life. He asserts that the science of the 
 
72 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 73 
 
 universe is unravelled by a nevvly-corrcctcd 
 science of man, adjusted to his metaphysical 
 theory. But is it so? Has Spencer succeeded ? 
 Let it be granted that so long as man endures 
 as a persistent type of knowing force, with his 
 interior relations—/, e,, his powers, his cate- 
 gories, his time and space— that so long the 
 science of the universe, which is built up by 
 the application of them all, may stand and be 
 trusted as true. But what is to happen at the 
 next evolution of this ascending spiral stair- 
 case, when another form of knowing energy is 
 evolved with its new and more complex fur- 
 nishings? May not some new interior relations 
 emerge— some powers and modes of think- 
 ing, some principles of science itself, which 
 shall reverse the science of to-day, and cause 
 
 the principles of Newton, the logic of Mill, and 
 the first principles of Spencer himself, to be 
 but an empty babble, because they are all 
 outgrown ; the intellect newly evolved finding 
 in them no import, and acknowledging in 
 them no authority ? 
 
 To this it will be replied, that Mr. Spencer 
 assumes that there can be no new evolution of 
 the power to know, which does not correspond 
 to some new objective relation in that which 
 is known ; that while it is true that the beliefs 
 in time and space are themselves developed, he 
 assumes that there correspond to them certain 
 exterior relations ; that in fact, he even goes 
 further and surrounds this finite universe with 
 the incomprehensible somewhat, whom he 
 allows us to believe, provided we will concede 
 
74 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 75 
 
 that what we believe does not correspond to 
 the truth ; and summons us to worship, provided 
 we will confess that we worship we know not 
 what. He does indeed assume all this. But by 
 what authority does he enforce these dogmas ? 
 except by the impressions of a being who is 
 himself evolved, and whose power to believe 
 that there are realities which answer to his own 
 interior relations, is itself a transient interior 
 relation which has been evolved from the 
 agencies that have chanced to produce it, and 
 whose methods of knowing are themselves the 
 products of an evolving and changing physio- 
 logical growth. If the man of the present 
 aeon, as the philosophy of Spencer explains, 
 is warranted in trusting the axioms of evolu- 
 tion and the persistence of force, then these 
 
 axioms are something higher and more au- 
 thoritative than physiological products, evolved 
 by the coincidence of exterior and interior rela- 
 tions. If Mr. Spencer's First Principles, or the 
 first principles of any other philosopher, are to 
 be received as the foundations of science, they 
 are good for all time, for all the past and all 
 the future. They have a higher and more per- 
 manent authority than his special theory can 
 vouch for. The sciences of nature and spirit 
 which he expounds cannot stand upon any 
 foundations which he provides for their sup- 
 port in his science of man. Every such science 
 is weak just in proportion to the sweep of its 
 pretensions and the accumulation of its facts. 
 It is like an imposing engine that is reared 
 upon a pedestal that is massive to the eye, but 
 
 \ 
 
1^ 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 77 
 
 which crushes its foundations into sand by the 
 first movements of its ponderous and compli- 
 cated structure. 
 
 The position which Spencer holds among 
 the philosophers of our time is so unique as to 
 justify, if not to require, special attention. 
 Many-sided in his culture, especially on the side 
 of physics, mathematics and natural history, 
 and apparently familiar with the history of 
 human culture and human progress, he seems 
 to command an inexhaustible fund of pertinent 
 and attractive illustrations. If he is not always 
 clear in announcing his principles, if his argu- 
 ments do not always convince us of the truth 
 of what we do understand, the wealth and 
 variety of his facts never fail to delight and as- 
 tonish the confiding reader who cannot find it 
 
 in his heart to distrust so well furnished a writer. 
 The apparent breadth and daring of his gener- 
 alizations surprise the student who does not 
 consider that philosophical genius is as strik- 
 ingly displayed in the acute detection of subtle 
 differences as in the vague suggestion of broad 
 and meaningless similarities. The catholic 
 spirit with which he seems to desire to do jus- 
 tice to every system of philosophy and relig- 
 ion, prepares for an easy credence of the uni- 
 versnl solvent which promises to decompose 
 them all. The positiveness of his manner and 
 the dogmatism of his assertions, which increase 
 with the paradoxical character of his opinions, 
 are elements of power with readers whose cre- 
 dulity rises with the daring of their admired 
 and trusted leader. It would not be fair to 
 
78 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 79 
 
 say that, so far as matter is concerned, Spencer 
 writes like a sophist or a charlatan, for the 
 reason that he instructs in too many single 
 and important truths. But it is not unjust to 
 assert that in method and manner, he is mas- 
 ter of the art of imposing exposition. The 
 reader who has had some experience in the 
 necessary art of searching for a meaning and 
 method in writers, in which neither is obvious, 
 will often lay down Spencer in despair, if not 
 with disgust,for his stealthy subreptions, his cool 
 word-plays, his confounding of inductions with 
 axioms, and his sacrifice of common sense to 
 the requirements of an unproved theory. The 
 clearness of his diction is no compensation for 
 the lack of that earnestness and verve which 
 are the never-failing indications of the highest 
 
 qualities of genius. The coolness of his man- 
 ner rather betrays than hides the conscious- 
 ness of paradox. His attempt to reconcile 
 philosophy with religion proves his concep- 
 tions of both to be superficial. No well-read 
 student of philosophy can hesitate to believe 
 that, notwithstanding the zeal of his admirers, 
 he will cease to be the wonder of the hour ; 
 that so soon as the secret of his plausibility 
 is exposed he will suffer a more complete 
 neglect than he will fairly deserve."^ 
 
 * The author takes the liberty to call the attention of his reader to 
 the fact that tills is a metaphysical essay or meditation, the argument 
 of which is directed to a sinjjle conclusion, and is in no sense a compre- 
 hensive treatise or criticism of any system of philosophy. While he 
 claims no exemption from the ohlijration to iuterpret Spencer's doc- 
 trines correctly, and to state them honestly, he does not consider 
 himself required to expound his system at leuglh, or to show that in 
 many of the positions to wliich he attaches very great importance, 
 and urges with the greatest persistence, he is flagrantly inconsistent 
 
8o 
 
 THE SCIE^XES OF NATURE 
 
 These arguments and criticisms must suffice. 
 We do not urge that a profound study of man, 
 
 with himself; that he not only goes beyond the range of knowledge 
 and belief to which be had limited himself by his theory of evolution, 
 but introduces assumptions for which hU system piakes no provis- 
 ion. With the mot>t earnest desire to understand Spencer, and some 
 eflort to reconcile his doctrines with one another in logical and phil- 
 osophical coherence, we can find no place in his theory for what 
 he calls Ultimate Rdifjious Ideas, for the reality of which he contends 
 so earnestly as against Hamilton and Mansel, with naive unc n- 
 gciousness of any iucontfisteucy with his own theory of knowledge ; 
 on which theory, however, he does not hesitate to fall back at once as 
 soon as he seeks to demonstrate their perpetual unknoivaXUmess by man. 
 >ior is it any easier to see how this theory allows him to diftin,:ui.«-h 
 between a foi'mvlaUA and unformulated comci'.ttsneis, after having 
 shut himself up to that consciousness which is formulated ; nor how 
 his explanation of the ger^sU of the ideas of space and time by evolu- 
 tion, can provide at all for his belief of the necessity or universaliiy 
 of thefe ideas, or of the realities which correspond to them ; nor how 
 the philosopher who has limited the researches of science to the rela- 
 tions of coexistence and sequence, and has thereby formally excluded 
 fie relation of cauriation, should abruptly introduce ns to something 
 which he denominates force, which he oracularly informs us is 
 Inscrutable, and concludes therefrom that matter and spirit may 
 therefore be mutually convertible and interch.uiu'eablo. Tlu; reader 
 who chooses to make the txpcrimcnt for himsilf, of expliining and 
 
 VS. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 8l 
 
 or a formal recognition of the principles which 
 underlie the study of nature, are essential to 
 eminent attainments in special sciences, or to 
 enlarged and liberal views of scientific research. 
 The working formulas of a single science, and, 
 indeed, of many, may be mastered by an adept, 
 and skilfully applied to brilliant achievments, 
 almost without the suspicion that they can be 
 justified hy a philosophic method. The prin- 
 ciples and methods of induction are practically 
 taught by nature and common sense to every 
 one who is willing to use them. But should 
 any one be questioned or denied, either in 
 obedience to the private maxims of a special 
 
 reconciling these incoherences of Spencer, is referred to his Flrn 
 Principles, Part I., Chapters 11., ill., and Iv. Part II., Chapter v., and 
 7^ PHnciples of PiycJiologv, Part IV., Chapter vii., % 308. 
 
82 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 7'S. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 83 
 
 philosophy, or the spirit of a narrow and 
 special study of a part of nature called physics, 
 they must be recognized and defended, 
 and in order that they may be defended and 
 recognized, they must be carefully studied by 
 a thorough examination of man. 
 
 For this study, the devotee of any special 
 science may be the more disqualified in pro- 
 portion to his zeal and success in his own de- 
 partment. But for this very reason, the greater 
 may be his confidence in pronouncing upon 
 questions of this sort, and with a positiveness 
 which is proportioned to his incompetence. 
 Nothing is more arrogant, and nothing ought 
 to be more offensive, than that the powers and 
 principles on which all science and induction 
 depends, should be resolved by or after analo- 
 
 gies derived from the mechanics of matter and 
 the dynamics of life. To narrowness of this 
 sort the sciences of nature offer special temp- 
 tations. The objects are so real, the processes 
 are so definite, the experiments are so satisfy- 
 ing, the enthusiasm is so contagious, that the 
 devotee is tempted occasionally to forget that 
 he is a man as well as a scientist, and to adjust 
 his estimates of human science and culture*, and 
 even of man's power to know, by a standard 
 taken from a single and a narrow sphere. 
 He that would converse with Nature with 
 effect, in these times, must retire apart into a 
 separate cave that is lonely and far withdrawn. 
 Within its recesses alone docs Nature whisper 
 her choicest secrets, and after a long and pain- 
 ful initiation of the devotee. To his uplifted 
 
 
84 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 85 
 
 torch alone does she reveal the starry roof and 
 the brilliant vision. No wonder that when he 
 emerges into the light of common day he is 
 as one dazed and bewildered, and talks of 
 common things with strange and perverted 
 speech. A one-sided cultivation, with its 
 positiveness and not ill-grounded conceit, 
 is not barbarism indeed ; but it is not culture, 
 in the large and generous sense of the 
 term. A system of education, which is 
 bent upon training specialists in any de- 
 partment, may be defective in proportion 
 to the completeness with which it ab- 
 sorbs and limits the energies of its devotees. 
 That the study of man is fitted to correct these 
 exclusive tendencies has been demonstrated 
 by the many eminent examples which modern 
 
 physics has furnished of philosophers dis- 
 tinguished alike for imaginative genius, careful 
 observation and speculative interest concern- 
 ing the nature of man and the methods of sci- 
 ence. That these tendencies need to be cor- 
 rected is as strikingly proved by the number 
 of scientists of another sort, who are not con- 
 tent with a well-earned reputation within their 
 own departments, but set themselves to reform 
 psychology and metaphysics after the law of the 
 dissecting room, and to correct theology in very 
 extemporized Lay ScnnonsJ^ 
 
 ♦The writer has no dej«irc to say hard things of Mr. Huxley, be- 
 cause ho has chosen to adopt the title of Lay Sermons for certain of 
 his discourses. But he cannot av<»id the impression that he would 
 have done mucli more wisely had he pursued a course with respect 
 to metapliysics and theolo-jy, similar to that which he does not hesi- 
 tate to recommend to clcr^'ymcn and metaphysicians with respect to 
 science, t. e., had he let the u alone. The confldent utterancea in 
 
86 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 We do not overlook the truth, that the stu- 
 dent of man is exposed to a narrowness and 
 dogmatism of his own, and can learn much, if 
 
 he will, from the sciences of nature. All these 
 sciences are but the products of the varied 
 applications of his spiritual power to the inves- 
 tigation of that truth which must be tested by 
 experiment, and enforced as fact. A mistake 
 in the investigation of nature is not only certain 
 to issue in failure in discovery, but it at once 
 attracts attention to the error of method in 
 the experiment or of principle in the theory. 
 Nature is fearfully and sternly realistic. She 
 
 respect to the fundamental problem, of philosophy and the truths and 
 duties of religion, which are freely eTprempod in many of these dig" 
 courses, appear to the greatest disadvantage when contranted with 
 tl»e purely sciontific expositions into whicli they arc interwoven. 
 They seem to have many of the worst characteristics of the most 
 offensive descriptions of sensational proachinj;. 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 87 
 
 abhors the brilliant vagaries, the imaginative 
 rhapsodies, the cloudy phraseology and dream- 
 ing idealism in which the one-sided student of 
 man and of metaphysics is tempted to indulge. 
 While she suggests an elevating and spiritual 
 philosophy of her own, and hides a magnifi- 
 cent history in her past, as well as veils a more 
 splendid romance in the future, she deals 
 very summarily with the metaphysical cos- 
 mologies, the idealistic physics, and realistic 
 logics which imaginative students have put off 
 as a. priori philosophies of nature. The stu- 
 dent of the mind and of man, who has been 
 schooled by a close and stern wrestling with 
 the forces and laws of matter, cannot but 
 carry the lessons which he has learned into 
 the study of the soul and of the methods of 
 
88 THE SCIENXES OF NATURE 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 89 
 
 science. He will exact from others and im- 
 pose on himself severe requirements in respect 
 of clear definition, rigorous logic, well-ground- 
 ed analogies and coherent arrangement. The 
 best security against the recurrence of that 
 metaphysical romancing by which the science 
 of man and the logic of science have been dis- 
 honored in the past is to be found in the 
 methods to which physics are so vigorously 
 held. Under the pressure of these lessons 
 the metaphysics of the future are likely to 
 prove sober and discreet. If they should need 
 any additional warning from this quarter, they 
 can find them in the examples of extravagant 
 metaphysics which are furnished by the physi- 
 cists and physiologists who would develop 
 man and the inductive philosophy itself from 
 
 the crucible, a bean-stalk or the gorilla ; or the 
 metaphysicians, who answer all possible ques- 
 tion concerning the universe, by a formula of 
 sequences and similitudes, and a law of evolu- 
 tion forever proceeding from some worshipful 
 ufikfiozcabie. 
 
 The study of man is not necessarily the 
 study of psychology or speculative philosophy. 
 Man is made manifest in history, philology, 
 literature, art, politics, ethics and theology. 
 The thoughts of man have recognized and 
 accepted those principles and institutions,those 
 manners and laws, that civilization and culture 
 which give security and grace to the present 
 life, which awaken the anticipations and con- 
 firm the faiths which reach into another. The 
 study of all these is a study oU/ic humanities. 
 
go 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 It enables us to understand man, and to 
 benefit man not only as he interprets and con- 
 trols what we call nature, but as he inter- 
 prets and controls that which is highest 
 in nature, /. ^., man himself. 
 
 This suggests the thought that the science 
 of nature is not only related to the science of 
 man because man interprets nature, but be- 
 cause man is a part of nature, and nature 
 cannot be truly and liberally interpreted unless 
 man, in his higher capacities, is embraced 
 within her plan and made the end of her agen- 
 cies. That is a very narrow view of nature which 
 only finds in nature physical agencies, and 
 limits her resources to mechanics and chem- 
 istry, but discovers no place in her broad ex- 
 panses or her generous provinces, for spirit 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 91 
 
 or intelligence ; accepting no man but proto- 
 plasm. That is also a narrow view which 
 recognizes man's higher endowments and 
 destiny, but allows them a scanty place 
 and meaning in the scientific interpretation of 
 the physical arrangements of the universe. 
 The science of man and of man's higher 
 nature in its highest developments, is essen- 
 tial to a science of nature, because nature 
 itself cannot be interpreted except as designed 
 for the uses and culture and development of man 
 as a spiritual being. Thus to interpret nature 
 does indeed require that we assume design 
 in nature. But all philosophy must assume 
 this, so far as it interprets the past or forecasts 
 the future. The positive philosophy does this 
 when it assumes that "the relations of 
 
vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 91 
 
 90 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 It enables us to understand man, and to 
 benefit man not only as he interprets and con- 
 trols what we call nature, but as he inter- 
 prets and controls that which is highest 
 in nature, /. ^., man himself. 
 
 This suggests the thought that the science 
 of nature is not only related to the science of 
 man because man interprets nature, but be- 
 cause man is a part of nature, and nature 
 cannot be truly and liberally interpreted unless 
 man, in his higher capacities, is embraced 
 within her plan and made the end of her agen- 
 cies. That is a very narrow view of nature which 
 only finds in nature physical agencies, and 
 limits her resources to mechanics and chem- 
 istry, but discovers no place in her broad ex- 
 panses or her generous provinces, for spirit 
 
 or intelligence ; accepting no man but proto- 
 plasm. That is also a narrow view which 
 recognizes man's higher endowments and 
 destiny, but allov/s them a scanty place 
 and meaning in the scientific interpretation of 
 the physical arrangements of the universe. 
 The science of man and of man's hieher 
 nature in its highest developments, is essen- 
 tial to a science of nature, because nature 
 itself cannot be interpreted except as designed 
 for the uses and culture and development of man 
 as a spiritual being. Thus to interpret nature 
 does indeed require that we assume design 
 in nature. But all philosophy must assume 
 this, so far as it interprets the past or forecasts 
 the future. The positive philosophy does this 
 when it assumes that "the relations of 
 
92 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 sequence and similitude" are constant, that 
 is, are always the same in the same circum- 
 stances. Darwin and Spencer both assume that 
 there is a plan of successive development or 
 evolution provided for in the infinite capacities 
 of the undeveloped germs, if such began at all, 
 or in their still more enlarged capabilities 
 of successive evolution and disintegration, if 
 the march of evolution is in cycles returning 
 upon one another. It would seem that the 
 wise intelligence assumed for this law of evolu- 
 tion would draw so heavily upon the faith of 
 its defenders, as to leave them little courage to 
 sneer at the theory of creation, as " the car- 
 penter theory." But upon questions of 
 consistency or taste, we have no room to 
 enlarge. We contend at present only for the 
 
 VS, THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 93 
 
 position that we cannot have a science of 
 nature which does not regard the spirit of 
 man as a part of nature. 
 
 But is this all? Do man and nature ex- 
 haust the possibilities of being? We cannot 
 answer this question here. But we find sug- 
 gestions from the spectrum and the spectro- 
 scope which may be worth our heeding. The 
 materials with which we have to do in 
 their most brilliant scientific theories seem at 
 first to overwhelm us with their vastness and 
 complexity. The bulks are so enormous, the 
 forces are so mighty, the laws are so wide- 
 sweeping and at times so pitiless, the dis- 
 tances are so over-mastering, even the uses 
 and beauties are so bewildering, that we bow 
 in mute and almost abject subjection to the 
 
94 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 incomprehensible all ; of which we hesitate to 
 affirm aught, except what has been manifest 
 to our observant senses and connected by our 
 inseparable associations. We forget what our 
 overmastering thought has done in subjecting 
 this universe to its interpretations. Its vast 
 distances have been annihilated, for we have 
 connected the distant with the near by the 
 one pervading force which Newton divined. 
 We have analyzed the flame that burns in our 
 lamp and the flame that burns in the sun by 
 the same instrument — connecting by a com- 
 mon affinity, at the same instant and under the 
 same eye, two agents, the farthest removed in 
 place and the most subtle in essence. As we 
 have overcome distances, so we have con- 
 quered time, reading the story of antecedent 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 9$ 
 
 cycles with a confidence equal to that with 
 which we forecast the future ages. The phil- 
 osopher who penetrates the distant portions 
 of the universe by the omnipresence of his 
 scientific generalizations, who reads the secret 
 of the sun by the glance of his penetrating 
 eye, has little occasion to deny that all its 
 forces may be mastered by a single all-knowing 
 and omnipresent Spirit, and that its secrets can 
 be read by one all-seeing Eye. The scientist 
 who evolves the past in his confident thought, 
 under a few grand titles of generalized forces 
 and relations, and who develops and almost 
 gives law to the future by his faith in the per- 
 sistence of force has little reason to question 
 the existence of an intellect capable of deeper 
 insight and larger foresight than his own. 
 
96 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE 
 
 which can grasp all the past and the future 
 by an all-comprehending intelligence, and can 
 control its wants by a personal energy that is 
 softened to personal tenderness and love. 
 
 We blame not the scientific discovei^when, 
 fresh from some triumphant experiment he 
 rejoices in the consciousness of power. We 
 wonder not that he rises from his feat of dis- 
 covery with a sense of mastery and dominion. 
 Man, by thought, is THE KiNG of the uni- 
 verse, so far as by thought he masters its 
 secrets and lays his hand upon its forces. Let 
 him be crowned as King by science, and let 
 no one dispute his right to rule. But let 
 him never forget that it is only by the right 
 which spirit asserts over matter — which 
 thought assumes over things — that he has 
 
 I, 
 
 vs. THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 
 
 9T 
 
 i 
 
 gained this dominion, and that he can extend 
 it only as he learns more wisely how to know 
 and use his own sagacious self-relying mind. 
 
 But has nature no other king? To answer 
 this question fully lies not within our scope. 
 
 The suggestions which we have made, would 
 seem to establish the conclusion that the sci- 
 ences of nature, when viewed in their funda- 
 mental .philosophy, do not necessarily lead 
 to Atheism. The history of these sciences of 
 nature moreover testifies that while the dex- 
 terous workers in experiments may successfully 
 apply the formulae which the thinkers have fur- 
 nished, and be content to look no further ; the 
 architects and philosophers of nature have uni- 
 formly discovered the foundations of a 
 philosophy of nature in the spirit of man, 
 
■ttif 
 
 98 
 
 THE SCIENCES OF NATURE. 
 
 as capable of thinking the thoughts o! 
 God. The nature of science, as justi- 
 fied by the mind of man, also reveals the truth 
 that its methods and assumptions are but 
 varied acknowledgments of an originating in- 
 telligence, whose thoughts and purposes we 
 interpret just so far as we discover the forces, 
 determine the laws, or explain the history 
 of the universe. 
 
 ;: coI..L^• 
 
^--T 
 
 -- J 
 
 
 
 I 
 
Mi 
 
 Ml] 
 
 I 
 
 ll'i 
 
. ^ ^ " *fef - -w 
 
 
 ^: 
 
 -■*'i 
 
 ■^-^1' 
 
 \ ,