NA TURE 



141 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1878 



PARADOXICAL PHILOSOPHY 

 Paradoxical Philosophy. A Sequel to the " Unseen 

 Universe" (London: Macmillan and Co., 1878.) 



ON opening this boolc, the general appearance of the 

 pages, and some of the phrases on -which we 

 happened to light made us somewhat doubtful whether 

 it lay within our jurisdiction, as it is not the practice of 

 Nature to review either novels or theological works. 



In the dedication, however, the book is described as an 

 account of the Proceedings of a learned society, a species 

 of literature which we are under a special vow to rescue 

 from oblivion, even when, as in this case, the proceedings 

 are those of one of those jubilee meetings, in which learned 

 men seem to aim rather at being lively than scientific. 



On the title-page itself there is no name to indicate 

 whether the author is one of those who by previous con- 

 viction have rendered them.selves liable to our sur- 

 veillance, but on the opposite page we find "The Unseen 

 Universe ; or. Physical Speculations on a Future State," 

 to which this book is a " Sequel," ascribed to the well- 

 known names of Balfour Stewart and P. G. Tait. 



Mr. Browning has expressed his regret that the one 

 volume in which Rafaelle wrote his sonnets, and the one 

 angel which Dante was drawing when he was inter- 

 rupted by " people of importance," are lost to the world. 

 We shall therefore make the most of our opportunity 

 when two eminent men of science, "driven," as they tell 

 us, "by the exigencies of the subject," have laid down all 

 the instruments of their art, shaken the very chalk from 

 their hands, and, locking up their laboratories, have be- 

 taken themselves to those blissful country seats where 

 Philonous long ago convinced Hylas that there can be no 

 heat in the fire and no matter in the world ; and where 

 in more recent times. Peacock and Mallock have brought 

 together in larger groups the more picturesque of con- 

 temporary opinions. 



In this book we do not indeed catch those echoes of 

 well-known voices in which the citizens of the " New 

 Republic " tell us how they prefer to regard themselves 

 as thinking, taking care, aU the while, that no actual 

 thought shall disturb their enjoyment of the luxury of 

 extravagant opinion. The members of the Paradoxical 

 Society, with their guest, Dr. Hermann Stofikraft, are far 

 too earnest to adopt this pose of mind, but they exhibit 

 that sympathy in fundamentals overlaid with variety in 

 opinions which is one of the main conditions of good- 

 fellowship. Dr. Stofifkraft, in spite of his name and of 

 his office as the single-handed opponent of the thesis of 

 the book, makes it his chief care so to brandish his 

 materialistic weapons as not to hurt the feelings of his 

 friends ; and when, near the end of the book, he gets a 



-tie out of temper, it is about matters with v»hich a 

 iiateriahst, as such, has no concern. 



As the book is not a novel there is no literary reason 

 or not telling "what became of the Doctor,'' as narrated 

 - 1 the last chapter. He goes to Strathkelpie Castle to 

 take part in an investigation of spiritualistic phenomena. 

 He begins by detecting the mode in which one young lady 

 performs her spirit-rapping, but forthwith falls into an 

 Vol. XIX.— No. 477 



"electro-biological" courtship of another, and, this 

 proving successful, he is persuaded by his wife and her 

 priest to renounce the black arts in the lump as works of 

 the foul fiend ; and then we are told that, having quieted 

 his spirit by a few evolutions in four dimensions, he has 

 now settled down to compose his " Exposition of the 

 Relations between Religion and Science," which he 

 intends to be a thoroughly matured production. 



The Doctor — and, indeed, most of the other characters 

 — are no mere materialised spirits, or opinions labelled 

 with names of the Eiiphranor and Alciphron tj^je. They 

 do not reduce their subject to a captit mortuum by an 

 exhaustive treatment, but take care, like well-bred people, 

 to drop it and pass on to another before we have time to 

 suspect that the last word has been said. 



We cannot accuse the authors of leading us through 

 the mazy paths of science only to entrap us into some 

 peculiar form of theological belief. Cn the contrary, 

 they avail themselves of the general interest in theo- 

 logical dogmas to imbue their readers at unawares with, 

 the newest doctrines of science. There must be many 

 who would never hare heard of Carnot's reversible 

 engine, if they had not been led through its cycle of 

 operations while endeavouring to explore the Unsee« 

 Universe. No book containing so much thoroughly 

 scientific matter would have passed through sevea 

 editions in so short a time without the alliurement of 

 some more human interest. 



Nor need we fear to draw down on Nature the 

 admonition which fell on the inner ear of the poet — 



" Thou pratest here where thou art least ; 



This faith hath many a purer priest. 

 And many an abler voice than thcu." 



For even those words and phrases which seemed at first 

 sight to remove the book from the field of our criticism, 

 are found on a nearer view to have acquired a new, and 

 indeed a paradoxical sense, for which no right of 

 sanctuar)' can be claimed. 



The words on the title-page : " In te, Domine, speravi, 

 non confundar in a^ternum," may recall to an ordinary 

 reader the aspiration of the Hebrew Psalmist, the closing 

 prayer of the "Te Deum," or the dying words of Francis 

 Xavier ; and men of science, as such, are not to be sup- 

 posed incapable either of the nobler hopes or of the 

 nobler fears to which their fellow-men have attained. 

 Here, however, we find these venerable words employed 

 to express a conviction of the perpetual validity of the 

 "Principle of Continuity," enforced by the tremendous 

 sanction, that if at any place or at any time a single excep- 

 tion to that principle were to occur, a general collapse of 

 every intellect in the universe would be the inevitable 

 result. 



There are other well-known words in which St. Paul 

 contrasts things seen with things unseen. These also are 

 put in a prominent place by the authors of the " Unseen 

 Universe." What, then, is the Unseen to which they 

 raise their thoughts ? 



In the first place the luminiferous jether, the tremors 

 of which are the dynamical equivalent of all the energy 

 which has been lost by radiation from the various systems 

 of grosser matter which it surrounds. In the second 

 place a still more subtle medium, imagined by Sir William 

 Thomson as possibly capable of furnishing an explana- 



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