94- Notices of Books. (January, 
the relations among things.” Concerning the methods of 
Philosophy, the author distinguishes between the subjective and 
the objective methods; the former belonging to metaphysical 
philosophy, which vainly attempts to frame plausible hypotheses 
concerning objectives by purely subjective means; the latter 
belonging to the Cosmic philosophy, which attempts to collect 
into a universal body of truth the generalisations obtained by 
Science, and thus adopts the method of Science, the objective 
method. Metaphysics is well distinguished from Physics in the 
fifth chapter :—‘‘ A scientific explanation is a hypothesis which 
admits of verification,—it can be either proved or disproved ; 
while a metaphysical explanation is a hypothesis which does not 
admit of verification,—it can neither be proved or disproved.” 
Thus our author considers Newton’s hypothesis of gravitation, 
and Descartes’s hypothesis of vortices, as strictly scientific ; for 
the first admitted of proof, and the latter of disproof; while 
Stahl’s hypothesis of a vital principle was purely metaphysical, 
for it admitted of neither. 
In the chapter on ‘“‘ Anthropomorphism and Cosmism” Dr, 
Fiske has some very pertinent remarks concerning the apparent 
antagonism between Science and Religion, ‘‘ the abiding terror 
of timid or superficial minds :’—‘‘ While Atheism scoffed at 
religion, and denied that the religious sentiment needed satis- 
faction; while Positivism, leaving no place in its scheme for 
religion to occupy, was compelled by an afterthought to proclaim 
that the religious sentiment finds its legitimate satisfaction in 
the service of an idealised Humanity; Cosmism, on the con- 
trary, assigns to religion the same place which it has always 
occupied, and affirms that the religious sentiment must find 
satisfaction in the future as in the past, in the recognition of a 
Power which is beyond Humanity, and upon which Humanity 
depends. The existence of God—denied by Atheism and ignored 
by Positivism—is the fundamental postulate upon which Cosmism 
bases its synthesis of scientific truths. The infinite and absolute 
power which Anthropomorphism has in countless ways sought 
to define and limit by metaphysical formule, thereby rendering 
it finite and relative, is the power which Cosmism refrains from 
defining and limiting by metaphysical formule, thereby acknow- 
ledging—so far as the exigencies of human speaking and thinking 
will allow—that it is infinite and absolute. ‘Thus, in the progress 
from Anthropomorphism to Cosmism, the religious attitude re- 
mains unchanged from the beginning to the end.” We do not 
remember to have seen this view put in more forcible and just 
language. 
In the chapter on the “ Classification of the Sciences ” we are 
told that Astronomy was a science in the days of Hipparchos ; 
Physics became a science when Galileo discovered the laws ot 
falling bodies ; Chemistry, when Lavoisier disproved the theory 
of phlogiston and explained the true principles of combustion ; 
