The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: Silberstein - The Universe and its Evolution

by Jacob Gould Schurman

The Universe and its Evolution. A New Theory on the Existence of the Universe, the Causation of its Energy, and its Order and Development. By S. J. Silberstein. New York, 1891. — pp. vi, 56.

This pamphlet is a brief extract translated from an Hebrew original of five volumes. The author has one thing in common with the classic speculative thinkers: he believes he has struck out a new, original, perfectly satisfactory, and epoch-making theory of the universe. Nor can one fail to discern behind the poor printing, and the bad English, in the midst of dubious criticisms and speculations of an ostensibly scientific character, flashes of genuine philosophic insight; but these fail to atone for the pre-scientific atmosphere and method of the work. It is the business of the metaphysician, on the basis of all existing knowledge, to conceive as a whole the world which the sciences interpret in parts. Though Mr. Silberstein thinks he is the first to attempt this task, he in reality comes no nearer to it than the beginners of speculation among the Greeks and Hebrews, of whose naïf theorizings the work often reminds one. Of his lengthy criticism of the first principles of physics, this is not the place to speak, though I will venture to say it seems to me beside the mark. What Mr. Silberstein does see clearly — and here he is at one with current philosophy — is the absurdity of speaking of a material universe unrelated to an Intelligence. He makes the world "an emanation of the absolute Intellect, an act of its thought." But so far as the present pamphlet goes, this conception remains unfruitful.

J. G. S.