The Knickerbocker/Volume 63/Number 6/Notices of New Publications
NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.
'Discussions,' in the classical, radical idea of the word, is a very appropriate denomination of the chapters of 'Universal Progress' striking asunder. It is fitting, because the author dissects all things, and finds the law of development in the ever and universally becoming of the heterogeneous out of the homogeneous, or reversed, the transition, or evolution rather, of homogencity into heterogencity. It is also fitting, because Mr. Spencer has unwanted analytic power, whilst in synthetic he is quite equal.
A profound thinker and rare observer, he accumulates facts, bidding science and history lay them at his feet, or at the beck of his brain, and then selects, arranges, and makes them utter his own thoughts, confirm his own high generalization.
He is lucid, consecutive, forceful, and it does one good, intellectually at least, to read him. No one pretending to philosophy can afford not to read him; no one can fail to be profited by reading him. Merely as a treasury of facts, and of the relativity of knowledges, the book were valuable; and as a dissertation and a genuine philosophy of progress, it is invaluable.
Having said thus much, it is not to be presumed that we assent to all his reasonings, or to his law of progress as definitely established on a scientific or unanswerable basis.
The author has taken pains, with some success, to disabuse himself of the charge of Positivism, so popular now with scientificists. In so far as that is supposed to be the equivalent of Comteism, he has exonerated himself quite; yet the tendency of his reasonings, in some of his chapters, is towards the general notion of Positivism.
Although he does not discard the idea of a personal God, the Creator, and perhaps, though undesignedly, lays the foundation for a stronger positive theological structure, yet, in carrying out his theory of evolution, he uses language adapted to throw grave doubt on the inspiration of the Bible and the wonted interpretation of the Genesis, or the Cosmogony. 'Must we receive,' he asks, 'the old Hebrew idea that God takes clay and moulds a new creature?' the interrogation hero being figurative and equivalent to a strong negation.
In chapter ninth, from which the quotation is made, the author represents the idea of 'special creations,' as of animals and man, as 'having no fact to support it,' and as not at all conceivable; the notion of man's evolution, in process of time, from the simplest monad, is only ludicrous to the uneducated, and the opposite belief inexcusable in the physiologist or the man of science; for 'if a single cell,' from the semen, 'may become a man in twenty years, a cell may, in the course of millions of years, give origin to the human race. The two processes are generically the same.' It would, moreover, be 'next to an insult to ask a leading geologist or physiologist whether he believes in the Mosaic account of the Creation.'
In all this reasoning there is the rejection of the fact of the revelation of the Mosaic account of creation, because it is said to have no fact to support it, and there is, certainly, the doctrine of evolution, even of man, out of original cells, without any creative power beyond that of making these original cells or monads, if even that, by a personal power. It is clearly intimated, also, that this man-monad probably required millions of years to develop itself, under modifying influences, into the present humanity.
Some would here say, 'Then we must expect monkeys to be evolved into men, in the processes of years;' but Mr. Spencer would reply to that, probably: 'The man-monad and the monkey-monad are originally or specifically different. Yet, on the other dogma of transmutation, why not the specific monkey-monad be transmuted into the man-monad?
It is not intended to pronounce Mr. Spencer's evolution theory positively atheistic, for it still leaves a place for a God, far back of all organisms, to create the cells, from which are evolved all moulds and plants, animals and man. This may be all that God did, and it may be as sublime a manifestation of power and of wisdom to create minute, homogeneous monads capable, by inner forces and external circumstances, of rolling themselves out and up into the highest intellectual specimens of humanity; but it is not, at least, an idea of power so appreciable by the evolved humanity in general, as the old one of the old Revelation.
Mr. Tuckerman has, in this volume, done the reading public a good service, and more especially the student of American history. It is a 'serviceable' aid to the investigator to be able, at once, to go to some bibliotheca, in which he shall find the titles of those works suited to his wants.
And if these be accompanied by a little judicious criticism, all the better. Such is the present volume. Its chief end is to be a guide to authentic sources of information in regard to the United States, and the author has, on the whole, well accomplished his object.
We might object a little, perhaps, to its one-sidedness in some respects, and to its incompleteness; yet It is worthy of general approbation and circulation.
To announce were enough. Has our own Bryant, first poet of our country, put forth 'Thirty Poems'? Then is America ready to read. Allow a passing word of commendation of his 'Translation of the Fifth Book of the Odyssey.' Having often read it in the original, we are free to say that this rendering into our idiomatic English brings the reader into a closer communion with the spirit of the original than any other extant.
This, as might be presumed, is not a book for only riflemen; for, whilst it is, at present, a work of great national utility, it also imparts knowledge adapt-ed to interest every intelligent mind. It is by a practical sportsman, experienced in the use of the rifle, and contains descriptions of various kinds of rifles, their characteristics, and comparative merits.
This is one of those books coming up out of the seething-pot of this terrible tribulation which is worthy of all confidence, and interesting to every reader. There is no fiction about it; but the lady tells her unvarnished tale of Cave-Life in Vicksburgh in so simple and Christian a way as to make us see and feel the events of each passing day. Of this book it may safely be said: 'Truth is stranger than fiction.' We heartily recommend it to all.
Professor Hackett is already known to many of us as the author of ' Illustrations of Scripture' and 'A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles.' The present volume is quite in keeping with his theological professorship, and a Christian, patriotic testimony to the life of faith and prayer of many a brave soldier, and to the triumphant death on the battle-field and in the hospital of such as were there called to sleep in Jesus.
The author has done a good work in selecting what are believed to be truth ful incidents, and stereotyping what otherwise might have been utterly lost to the historians of the war. It is like daguerreotyping the passing ripples of the lake, or the floating motes in the sunbeam. Yet great care and caution are requisite for the verification.
There are chapters on Soldiers of the Cross in the Army, Courage Promoted by Trust in God, Happy Deaths of Brave Men, Incidents of the Camp and Battle-Field, etc.
This is a well-written novel, in style above the ordinary run of fiction; char-acters well conceived and well represented, and abounding in sage, philosophic reflections on social life. It portrays well much of the social life or death existing among us prior to the war, and indeed yet prevalent; and whilst some might object to a very few of its implications, it is, on the whole, superior in its truthful delineation of manners and morals, though rather sensational and crime-disclosing.
MUSIC.
Published by Horace Waters, 481 Broadway:
'This Hand Never Struck Me, Mother.'
'The Little Ballad-Girl.'
'The Dying Drummer.'
'Heart Chimings.'
'Yacht Club Polka Redowa.'
'The Sanitary Fair Polka.'