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2T 
THURSDAY, MARCH 1oTH. 
Mr, BENJAMIN KIDD'S 
The Principles of Western Civilization, 
A Criticism and a Review, 
BY 
Tue Rev. F. ASHER. 

S to the class of literature to which Ze Principles of Western 
Civilization belongs, Mr. Asher remarked that we are 
familiar with the treatment of life which consists in looking at the 
facts, and using common sense, and working up through facts to 
the principles which, as far as we can see, indicate the order in 
which facts are given to us. We know the scientific habit of 
mind, and this book is certainly not scientific. We are familiar 
with the method which treats not so much of facts as of thoughts, 
the method of Kant, and men of his stamp, who teach us not so 
much what the facts actually are, but tell us the conditions under 
which knowledge is possible. We know the philosophic habit of 
mind and the class of literature which deals with facts, not by 
working up from them, but by working down to them in the light 
of first principles. ‘There is a gulf between these two habits of 
mind, between which war has been and is still being waged. But 
this book is not a philosophic book. _It belongs to another class 
of literature, which deals not so much with facts and thoughts, as 
with that difficult and mysterious factor which we call life, which 
no one yet has analysed, which no one pretends to understand, 
but which is for ever facing us, inviting us to ascertain it, and 
eluding us; and which life can only be grasped by those men who 
are seers, and see into the life of things, and express their apergu 
in the form which we may call apocalyptic. The characteristic of 
the apocalyptic type of literature, of which we have an exponent 
in Thomas Carlyle, is that it endeavours to grasp that which the 
man admits eludes him, the source of all facts—life. The 
scientific man deals with what he can observe ; the philosophical 
man seems to grasp a higher type of fact ; but the seer invariably 
feels himself invited, and almost oppressed by the sense of a 
