126 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



senses' in varying degrees, are suffi- 

 ciently numerous to confirm one an- 

 other's ohservations and reports.'''' The 

 Italics are ours. Here "we have the 

 whole case. Reducing it to the terms 

 of the former illustration, instead of 

 the persons claiming to be endowed 

 with the color-sense being in a position 

 to experiment before the whole world 

 in the distinguishing by sight of claret 

 from sherry and other similar feats, 

 they simply form a clique who perform 

 experiments in more or less secret con- 

 clave, and then profess "to confirm one 

 another's observations and reports." 

 The two things are very diflFerent. Mr. 

 Sinnett had better have chosen a differ- 

 ent illustration. 



LITERARY NOTICES, 



Collected Essays. By T. H. Huxley. Vol. 

 VI. Hume, with Helps to the Study of 

 Berkeley. Pp. 319. Vol. VII. Man's 

 Place in Nature, and other Anthropologi- 

 cal Essay.*. Pp. 328. Vol. VIH. Dis- 

 courses, Biological and Geological. Pp. 

 388. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 

 Price, $1.25 each. 



In the preface to the first of these vol- 

 umes Prof. Huxley repeats his conviction, 

 often expressed, that Descartes, if any one, 

 may claim to be the father of modern phi- 

 losophy ; or that his general scheme of things, 

 his conceptions of scientific method, and of 

 the conditions and limits of certainty are far 

 more essentially and characteristically mod- 

 ern than those of any of his immdiate prede- 

 cessors and successors. A ruling axiom in 

 his work, obedience to which was the source of 

 his great merit and an axiom which seems, 

 moreover, to have inspired Prof. Huxley in 

 all his studies was expressed in his famous 

 resolution " to take nothing for truth with- 

 out clear knowledge that it is such " ; " the 

 great practical cflfect of which," says the au- 

 thor, "is the sanctification of doubt; the rec- 

 ognition that the profession of belief in prop- 

 ositions, of the truth of which there is no 

 sutlicient evidence, is immoral ; the discrown- 

 ing of authority as such ; the repudiation of 

 the confusion, beloved of sophists of all sorts, 

 between free assent and mere piously gagged 



dissent ; and the admission of the obligation 

 to reconsider even one's axioms on demand." 

 In the reform of philosophy since Descartes, 

 Prof. Huxley thinks he finds the greatest and 

 most fruitful results of the activity of the 

 modern spirit, perhaps the only great and 

 lasting results, in those first presented in the 

 works of Hume and Berkeley, one of whom 

 carried out the Cartesian principle to its logi- 

 cal result, and the other extended the Carte- 

 sian criticism to the whole range of proposi- 

 tions commonly " taken for truth." The es- 

 say on Hume was prepared originally for the 

 English Men of Letters series, with some hope 

 of passing on to others the benefits the au- 

 thor had received from the study of his 

 works. The author hoped, also, at one time 

 to add an analogous exposition of Berkeley's 

 views, but was unable to carry out his desire, 

 and is forced to content himself with giving 

 two preliminary studies. 



The first three essays in Man's Place in 

 Nature recall an incident in the history of sci- 

 ence, when, thirty-seven years ago. Prof. Hux- 

 ley, after due study of the subject, ventured 

 to differ with his fellow zoologists or anthro- 

 pologists, and to maintain that so far from 

 certain features of the brain being peculiar 

 to man and separating him far from other 

 mammals, they were shared by him with all 

 the higher and many of the lower apes. The 

 rash philosopher was helped, to some extent, 

 out of the troubles this indiscreet assertion 

 brought upon him by the appearance of 

 Darwin's Origin of Species. In 1860 he de- 

 livered six lectures to workingmen on the Re- 

 lation of Man to the Lower Animals, and the 

 subject was discussed before a " jury of ex- 

 perts " at the Oxfoi'd meeting of the British 

 Association; and in 1862 Sir AV. Flower pub- 

 licly demonstrated the existence in apes of 

 those cerebral characters which had been 

 said to be peculiar to man. Besides the 

 three lectures, first published in their present 

 form in 1863, which embody the principles 

 about wliich controversy raged, the volume 

 contains lectures on the Methods and Results 

 of Ethnology (1865), Some Fixed Points in 

 British Ethnology (1871), and The Aryan 

 Question (1890). 



In the tliird of the volumes the author de- 

 clares that he has never been able to regard 

 a popular lecture as a mere side-work, unwor- 

 thy of being ranked among the serious ef- 



