SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



273 



tional organizer. This is shown especially in his Plan for a Polytechnic 

 School in Boston, and his labors in furtherance of the scheme, which re- 

 sulted in the establishment of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

 His grasp of modern educational conditions is shown also in documents 

 which he presented to the Legislatures of Virginia and Massachusetts in 

 behalf of the institutions with which he was successively connected. Abil- 

 ity of the same sort appears in the part that he took in organizing the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Promotion of Social Science, and the National Academy of 

 Sciences. His death in 1882 closed a career of marked influence upon the 

 advancement of science in America. 



GENERAL NOTICES. 



IN order to judge fairly of the key to the 

 problems of the universe furnished by Mr. 

 Silberstein,* it is not only necessary for one 

 with scientific habit of thought to subdue 

 this mental temperament, but to place him- 

 self in that receptive frame of mind with 

 which he should attend a seance or view an 

 impressionist picture. However easy this 

 may be for the metaphysician, it is almost 

 impossible for the physicist or chemist, who, 

 without his rule of verification, is more help- 

 less than a rudderless ship at sea. 



This comprehensive work is well divided 

 into four chapters : The Idea of God, The 

 Creation, Matter and Force, and Universal 

 Mechanism. 



As the conception of a machine precedes 

 its manufacture by the mechanic, so the uni- 

 verse in its potential being antedates the 

 physical universe which is individualized 

 from it. The abstract concept of the uni- 

 verse as a whole is absolute intellectuality 

 or God. This conclusion is reached by the 

 a priori method of pure reason. The cog- 

 nition of man, which concerns itself only 

 with the perception of things manifest to 

 the senses, is no knowledge at all. It teaches 

 us nothing of true entities. We observe 

 bread and man as two different things, and 

 also that they are mutually convertible. If 

 they were real existences, " how could they 

 merge one into the other?" Hence "we 

 are forced to assume that the entity of any 

 compound object as it appears within the 

 limits of time is not real. . . . Thus the 

 science of experience and experiments alone, 



* The Disclosures of the Universal Mysteries. 

 By Solomon J. Silberstein. New York : Philip 

 Cowen, 1806. Pp. 298. Price, $2. 

 VOL. LI. 21 



of which our naturalists are so proud, and 

 which they call ' exact knowledge,' is a de- 

 lusion." All the causes which exist in the 

 universe are bound up together in the knowl- 

 edge of the causes. If man knows one 

 cause, he knows all causes of eternal exist- 

 ence. Man, however, knows that he does 

 not know, and in this comprehends the whole 

 knowledge of the entire universe. He thus 

 arises to Divinity itself, and human intelli- 

 gence is identically the same with the one 

 absolute knowledge. 



In regard to the Creation, we learn that 

 the universe consists of two kinds of exist- 

 ence, sensual and intellectual. " The exist- 

 ence of any Creator before the creation in 

 time, or behind it in space, is an impossi- 

 bility." Matter can not contain in itself the 

 absoluteness of existence. Man as a mate- 

 rial being is an accident of changeable mat- 

 ter. The creation of the universe is an 

 eternal emanation of the Absolute Intellectu- 

 ality. The essence of the universe vibrates 

 in spiritual waves. Physical waves, which 

 appear in various forms of energy, magnet- 

 ism, electricity, heat, and light, are contained 

 in these. 



In Matter and Force we are given a resu- 

 me of the theories of various philosophers 

 from Thales to Spinoza. Many modern phi- 

 losophies are considered. They differ from 

 that of Spinoza only in their names. " One 

 calls his system Positivism, the other Mate- 

 rialism, the third Skepticism, the fourth 

 Evolution, but they are all one in the Spinoza 

 fanaticism." Among others Newton came, 

 and through his mistaken theory of gravita- 

 tion " reduced mankind to a still lower de- 

 gree of pure wisdom." Chemists have also 

 led the world astray with their inductions. 



