A MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. A Text Book for Schools and Colleges. By John S.

Hart, LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and of the English Language and Literature in the College of New Jersey. Eldredge & Brother: Philadelphia.

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From The London Quarterly Review.
THE HIGHER MINISTRY OF NATURE.*

closes her own meaning, and mind perceives, does not invent, the correlations EVERY thoughtful mind, instructed in of phenomena. But profound and eager the aspects of modern scientific specula- students of Nature, not content with intion, and solicitous for the safety of terpreting to us the latest utterance of moral and religious truth, must desire their great instructor, interpolate, tell us the spread of sound scientific knowledge. what they think the following sentences The recent achievements of science are will be. Doubtless this has been done at so fascinating, nay, romantic, that they times with a splendid penetration that must needs become matters of popular in- has reflected the utmost glory upon the terest. Their poetry, their cosmical ca- human intellect. Nay, there are limits tholicity, their almost superhuman results, within which it is invaluable. But to the invest them with a perpetual charm for all audience outside themselves, which scienwho think. But it is undeniable that a tific men seek to reach, the interpolation clear knowledge of the principles of sci- and the text should be distinguished. ence, and a consequent appreciation of Their separate values should be frankly the true relations of current discovery, is given, and the suppositions should relate not possessed generally by even the most to sequence, not to phenomena - to laws, cultured classes. Hence a bare statement not to facts. But this is too much lost. of formula or fact, although expressing sight of in the brilliant speculations of the sublimest discovery, would to the our day. Data real and data hypothetmasses, have neither beauty nor force. tical are placed side by side. There is no To have meaning for them, it must be attempt at distinction, and the whole are correlated to theory, strung upon hypo- marshalled at the dictates of a philosophy thesis. This work, of necessity, fell into by means of which science negatives the the hands of the speculatists in science; possibility of all but itself! It becomes, and thence have arisen the complexities therefore, the duty of the Christian philosof prevailing thought. We by no means opher to separate the known from the byimply dishonesty of purpose, we have pothetical, the real from the ideal; to disstrong reason to believe in the sincerity arm the ruthless theorizer, by enabling of these teachers; but we nevertheless the thoughtful and truth-seeking to disurge that the manner in which hypothe- tinguish between what Nature has dissis is made to wed fact, can be received closed and what is merely the invention only by those to whom, in their integrity, of imaginative minds; to front fearlessly the data of modern science are unknown. the latest triumphs of research prepared The surest correction of these heretical to show that these disclose profounder lesspeculations is a rigid knowledge of the facts; for it is not what science discloses, but the philosophy of its votaries, that threatens the foundation of religious belief.

Science proper is the exact interpretation of phenomena. It has no concern for the harmony or discord of these with the canons of either metaphysics or theology, much less with efforts to prove harmony impossible. Its work is to grasp and accumulate the facts of the universe until they axiomatically group themselves into inevitable "laws." Nature thus dis

• The Higher Ministry of Nature, Viewed in the Light of Modern Science, and as an Aid to Advanced Christian Philosophy. By JOHN R. LEIFCHILD. A.M. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1872.

sons than the highest science can reach; that Nature has a "higher ministry," without which, even after science has drawn from it its latest truth, it would be devoid of its noblest meaning. This is the object of the book before us. A timely, and, in many senses, a rich contribution to the mental necessities of our times, it is the work of a mind comprehensive in its grasp, deep in its sympathy with nature, and strong in its love of truth. Its scope is broad, embracing the physical, the metaphysical, and the metaphysiological, in their most advanced and completed forms, comprising, on the one hand, the largest questions possible to thought, and, on the other, the minutest details of the latest research. The reasoning is clear

and strong; and the style, although occa- ture has no ministry but what is brute, sionally florid, is in the main graceful and no beauty that is real. But this is not pure. philosophy, for it ignores the mental The author takes up his position under characteristics of the philosopher! It circumstances that entitle him to a fair generalizes with some of the largest facts and impartial hearing on either side. He omitted. It is content wholly to omit is known to science as a writer on geo- the consciousness of humanity, and to logical subjects whose contributions treat with contempt the necessary laws deserve the highest respect, while his of thought. Mind every where is conright to be heard by theologians is mani-scious of the ethical in Nature, otherwise fest in the conservative, yet purely philo- the largest proportion of its meaning is sophical, spirit in which theology is treated. lost. To what end the sublimity, the majWith the earlier chapters we are not so esty, the glory of nature? Whence the unimmediately concerned. They.conduct us uttered perfection of its minutiæ, and the naturally to the essence of the theme, re- boundless magnificence of its whole? If minding us of the fleeting nature of hu- Nature makes no appeal to mind, why are man life and experience in comparison the purest displays of her beauty within its with the enduring nature of the universe. reach, yet defiantly and for ever beyond Hence the importance of learning to the the grasp of unaided human vision? Why utmost what Nature has the power to has the invisible crystal such entrancing teach. It is urged that Nature's ministry grace of form? To what end the chasing is two-fold, a lower and a higher, a utili- on a diatom which requires our highest tarian and an ethical. By the one she optical aids to discover? Why have "subserves our present individual and col- some of the minutest animals in nature a lective interests, makes highly civilized sculptured beauty which the most artistic man what he now is, and promises to make conception cannot surpass? Is it not Inhim more than he now is, and place him finite Intelligence appealing to its finite on the highest eminence of physical at- kindred? Matter is the thoughts and tainments."* By the other, "She serves activities of the Unbounded Mind taking us as a handmaid to religion, and becomes visible form. Like poetry, music, sculpour servant in showing herself to be the ture, it is a language; and to understand servant of God." It is confessed that it a like intelligence was formed. We may they are intimately linked, but we prefer engender a deafness to it, we may become to consider that Nature has no ministry specialists, we may suffer an unequal develbut the higher; that in her affluent re-opment of our nature. In studying the sponse to man's personal needs, and in her mere framework of creation, we may blind aids to his physical elevation, as well as in ourselves to its soul, as an organ may be her appeals to his highest mental nature, analyzed or constructed by those who have her ministry is one. It is selfishness that no faculty to evoke its music. But it need has broken the rhythm and unity of her not be thus. Some of the most accomteaching. Man has luxuriated in her plished experimentalists and investigators boundless beneficence to him, until his in every department of science are not mind's eye has become dull to the gentler breathings, which, through his intellect, were meant to link him with the Mind from whence all being sprang.

To those who are eager to exclude the Deity from the universe because He eludes their method, because they cannot find Him as they find an absorptionband in a stellar spectrum, of course Na

* Page 9.
† Page 24.

only devout students of nature, but simple and confiding Christians. We speak of what we know. Then, is not our voluntary or tolerated indifference culpable? Are we not responsible for a gift so large as that which Nature offers? This is a question to which Mr. Leifchild carefully replies:

"The term ignorance, if strictly used, can only be applied with reference to that which may be known, for the term nescience properly expresses that which is beyond the possibility

nature of all intelligence to know. Such nescience is no defect or imperfection—it is only the very strength or perfection of reason.

of knowledge. In truth, there can really be an knowledge of this furnishes their "laws; ignorance only of that of which there can be a but this is all. Things, realities, we knowledge. The ignorance,' says Ferrier, never reach. Hence the existence of which is a defect, must not be confounded mind or matter, God or self, cause final with the nescience of the opposites of the necesor cause efficient, lies defiantly beyond sary truth of reason; in other words, with a us: it can never be known. But the nescience of that which it would contradict the major difficulties which this subtle system brings with it arise from confounding the knowledge of the nature of a thing with the knowledge of its existence. We may know that a thing is without knowing what it is. To suppose that mind can confine itself to a mere succession of phenomena evinces the utmost weakness. Its fallacy is shown by the reasonings and hypotheses of the Positivists themselves. "Positive knowledge," says Herbert Spencer," does not, never cau, fill the whole region of possible thought. At the uttermost reach of discovery there arises,` there must ever arise, the question, 'What lies beyond?' As it is impossible to think of a limit to space, so as to exclude the idea of space lying outside that limit, so

Ignorance which is remediable is morally culpable, and more or less culpable in proportion to the importance of the object of knowledge. Of many things we may continue ignorant which it would be of some advantage to know; of other things we may be ignorant which are of the highest moment, and if we remain voluntarily ignorant of them to the end, such ignorance is culpable in proportion to the importance of its objects.

"Now in this light ignorance of what may be learned of the Divine Being and His designs in the world around us appears to be voluntary and culpable; voluntary in proportion to the amount of light and knowledge capable of being discovered in the natural world; and culpable in proportion to the value and elevating influ- we cannot conceive of any explanation ence of such knowledge on the mind in relation to God. Moreover, this culpableness increases in proportion to the bearing which all such knowledge has on our condition in a future state; and if we extend our ignorance voluntarily to what belongs to the state of the soul in the next life, then we become responsible for all that we may there have to endure." - Pp. 28, 29, 30.

profound enough to exclude the question, 'What is the explanation of that explanation?' Throughout all future time, as now, the human mind may occupy itself, not only with ascertained phenomena and their relations, but also with that unascertained something which phenomena and their relations imply."* Huxley admits that the term positive, when used to sigThis opens to us the whole question of nify a system of thought which knows of knowledge-what it is possible to know, nothing beyond observed facts, "never did and what is "unknowable." And here, exist and never will." Thus this philconsidering the importance of the ques- osophy sets out with canons which it is tion as it bears upon modern scepticism, compelled to admit that the common conwe discover a serious defect in this treat-sciousness of man repudiates. Thought ise. The author declines to discuss it: he will not be contracted within the limits of launches from phenomena to faith; and, in material phenomena. As to mind: a book designed to display the reasonableness of faith in the light of modern science, we think this a deficiency. The Neither do material phenomena erect a subtilest scepticism of the age proceeds on barrier beyond which, within proper limthe assumption that the reality, the absoits, it may not legitimately range. A relute existence of things, is unknowable; flection implies something reflected, and it that we can never know more than the is an immanent act of mind to refer pherelations subsisting between things unnomena to something. Appearance imknown. We neither do nor can know any-plies something appearing, and from this thing but phenomena, and these but relatively. They are observed to occur unwaveringly in the same order, and our

"Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage."

* First Principles, 16, 17.
† Lay Sermons, 178, note.