LITERARY NOTICES. 



703 



says that the theory of evohition which 

 Mr. Spencer has elaborated with such 

 ingenuity " will share the fate of other 

 merely speculative fabrics," and "fade 

 away in the advancing light of real 

 knowledge." The implication of course 

 is that Mr. Spencer's work lacks the 

 character of " real knowledge," and 

 this the writer confirms by speaking 

 of " a certain color of science " which 

 he has been enabled to give it. This is a 

 strange deliverance. A system born of 

 science, and constructed warp and woof 

 out of the accredited facts and truths 

 of the sciences, is not well described as 

 having imparted to it a superficial col- 

 oring of science. Mr. Spencer's allegi- 

 ance to facts, his comprehensive grasp 

 of the results of science, and his com- 

 mand of the scientific method and fidel- 

 ity to it, are unchallenged. His system, 

 given out in fragments favorable for the 

 most critical examination, has been un- 

 der fire for twenty-five years, and has 

 extended in influence and steadily risen 

 in consideration in a scientific age be- 

 cause it was recognized to embody more 

 "real knowledge" than any other such 

 system ever before presented. The 

 writer in the ".Commercial" thinks he 

 sees indications that it is already de- 

 clining ; he merely misinterprets the 

 subsidence of opposition. 



The simple fact of the case is, that 

 Mr. Spencer was the first to deal with 

 evolution as a strictly scientific prob- 

 lem. He withdrew it from the field of 

 fanciful speculation, and subjected its 

 investigation to the rigorous conditions 

 of analytic and synthetic science. The 

 time had come when, by the laws of ad- 

 vancing intelligence, the subject had to 

 be taken up from this point of view. 

 Its fundamental datum was given by 

 Huxley in a few words. " It is now 

 established, and generally recognized," 

 said he, " that this universe and all that 

 it contains did not come into existence 

 in the condition in which we now see 

 it, nor in anything like that condition." 

 It is therefore self-evident that changes 



have taken place by which one condi- 

 tion of things has led to another and 

 a different condition of things. Mr, 

 Spencer took up the inquiry at this 

 point by asking, What are the laws of 

 these changes? It was an inquiry into 

 the order of the phenomenal world 

 and therefore strictly scientific in its 

 nature, as not a step could be taken 

 toward its solution except by the inex- 

 orable application of scientific methods. 

 Postulating those universal and funda- 

 mental laws of scientific inquiry, the 

 indestructibility of matter and force, 

 the changes that have taken place had 

 to be investigated as transformations 

 by which one thing is derived from an- 

 other, and the present evolved out of 

 the past under that inflexible princi- 

 ple of all scientific inquiry, the law of 

 cause and effect. Beyond doubt, one 

 of the great secrets of the rapid accept- 

 ance of the doctrine of evolution by the 

 best-trained minds of the age is the 

 thoroughly scientific character of the 

 exposition in Spencer's system. It has 

 the stability of a great law of Xature, 

 fortified by results from all the sciences, 

 and can only pass away as it is further 

 developed under the principle of evolu- 

 tion, which itself gives law to the prog- 

 ress of knowledge ; and the attempt 

 to kick it into the limbo of specula- 

 tive vagaries implies, as we have said, 

 some considerable misapprehension of 

 the situation. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Gray's Botanical Text-Book. Sixth edi- 

 tion. Vol. II. Physiological Botany. 

 1. Outlines of the Histology of Phanerog- 

 amous Plants ; 2. Vegetable Physiology. 

 By George Lincoln Goodale, A. M., 

 M. D., Professor of Botany in Harvard 

 University. Xew York and Chicago : 

 Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. rrico. 



The first edition of Gray's " Botanical 

 Text-Book " was published forty-three years 

 ago, and took the highest rank at once as 

 an American exposition of the science, both 

 for college uses and for students generally. 



