1875.| (93 ) 
NiO TTC Es. 0), BO OR, S, 
Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, based on the Doctrine of 
Evolution, with Criticisms on the Positive Philosophy. By 
JoHN Fiske, M.A., LL.B., Assistant Librarian and formerly 
Lecturer on Philosophy at Harvard University. London: 
Macmillan and Co. 1874. 
THE groundwork of the present volumes appeared in 1869 and 
1871, in the form of a Course of Lectures delivered at Harvard 
University, and afterwards in London, Boston, and New York. 
The work is a detailed treatment of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s 
‘“‘New Philosophy,” and it contains further criticisms of the 
Positive Philosophy, and some new matter relating to the 
evolution of society, and the conditions of human progress. 
The author commences by showing the relativity of all know- 
ledge ; we cannot know the absolute, only the relative, for ‘‘ we 
cannot know things as they exist independently of our intelli- 
gence, but only as they exist in relation to our intelligence ;”’ 
and, secondly (and this assertion we commend to all free-thinkers 
and materialists), ‘the possibilities of thought are not identical 
or co-extensive with the possibilities of things.’ If this were 
recognised more fully, how much less should we hear of those 
unfortunate conflicts between Religion and Science, of which we 
have heard a great deal too much of late. Led a step further, 
we have to realise that all knowing is classifying ; that when we 
note any natural phenomenon, for example, and believe it to be 
explained, we have simply correlated it with other phenomena 
which it resembles. The elements of likeness, difference, and 
relation, enter into and limit all our cognition. The second 
chapter (on ‘“‘ The Scope of Philosophy’) may be summed up 
in the following words :—‘‘ Common knowledge expresses in a 
single formula a particular truth respecting a particular group of 
phenomena; Science expresses in a single formula a general 
truth respecting an entire order of phenomena; Philosophy 
expresses ina single formula a universal truth respecting the 
whole world of phenomena. Philosophy therefore remains, as 
of old, the study of the Cosmos,—save that is the study of 
phenomena not of noumena, of evolution not of creation, of 
laws not of purposes, of the How? not of the Why?” The 
third chapter discusses the ‘‘ Test of Truth;” and at the 
outset we meet with a very concise definition of truth, although 
described as only “provisionally defined: ’—‘* Truth may be 
provisionally defined as the exact correspondence between the 
subjective order of our conceptions and the objective order of 
