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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[J.V.NUAnY, 



a satisfactory one, as it is merely — 'I do not know.' But if anyone 

 reflects a moment, he will see that it is im|iossil)le 1 or any one 

 else could know, without, at least, the fjift of prophecy; for the 

 very essence of projrress is its procession towards sometljin^' we do 

 not now see ; and the essence of invention is, findinif out wliat we 

 do not know, and what could not hefore he known." This is 

 honest; whether it is satisfactoiy, we leave others to judge. 



Ila\ injLT now shown the relevance of Mr. Fergusson's book to 

 tlie school of philosophy to which it relates, we shall proceed to 

 examine it hy itself; which we could hardly do to the satisfaction 

 of our readers until we had made them sufficiently ac(iuainted 

 with the position and views of the author; for otherwise, we 

 should he under the suspicion of criticising a detail, which is irre- 

 levant to the scheme of our work or the wishes of our readers. 



Mr. Fergusson begins by considering the progress of mankind, 

 and the state of this country, so far as vice and virtue are con- 

 cerned; and the constitution of society as affected thereby. He 

 asserts that there is no ])hysical nor mental equality between men, 

 hut tliat tliere is a perfect natural ecpiality of all conditions of 

 mankind, as far as the power of attaining happiness is concerned 

 (p. 4.) lie looks uptni "all states of society, from the merest bar- 

 barism to the highest civilization, as having its advantages and dis- 

 advantages, its virtues and its vices, and that, in fact, there is no 

 natural advantage possessed by one over the other; in all, vice does 

 and must exist, — in all, virtue is attainable hy those who seek it; 

 there is no state in which it is not in man's ])ower to inijirove his 

 condition: none in which a neglect of what is right may not 

 render his jiosition intolerable." He regards evil as inevitable and 

 necessary, but that there is a full power of improvement. This 

 leads to the question, "What are we to do to extract all the possi- 

 ble good out of our present condition ?" Mr. Fergusson's answer 

 i.s, "Cultivate the sciences and the arts; no purer faith — no real and 

 permanent good can be effected, except from an improvement in 

 Knowledge; no higher or more elevated tone can be given on the 

 all-important subjects of morals or religion, except hy imparting a 

 higher degree of refinement, and a better appreciation of the 

 purely beautiful to the public mind. This last is — or at least, 

 should be — the true mission of art; and were art so cultivated and 

 based on knowledge, we should have higher aims and nobler pur- 

 poses than we now have, and we might be struggling forward 

 towards the Divinity, instead of grovelling in error, as we are now 

 doing." 



In our present condition, the writer considers us as a mere money- 

 making, power-accumulating people — undignified by higher pur- 

 suits. If we remain so, the fate of Rome must be our's. He 

 points out the mass of idle wealth, seeking and finding its only 

 gratification in frivolity or sensuality; and a still more powerful 

 mass of want and misery festering at the base, and preying on the 

 vitals of society. It is upon the healthy mass that he relies for 

 redemption in the future. 



The evil which Mr. Fergusson points out as the most prominent 

 is, not that usually selected, but which ought to be. "What is most 

 wanted, says he, is a better style of education for tlie u]i]ier 

 classes. It is in them that the great danger to society exists, 

 and from them the example must come, th;it will elevate the tone 

 of society." This is most true,and so is what follows. "At present 

 we have not an upper class capable of conceiving or creating, and 

 consequently, no lower class trained merely to exeoite ; but art 

 rests half way on a class combining both attributes, and who prac- 

 tice it only for its money-value as a trade, thinking and executing 

 themselves" ()>. 9.) 



The system of education given to the higher classes the writer 

 considers particularly to blame; but we think he does not suffi- 

 ciently «cigh the influence of tireek and Latin grammar. They 

 may form "a distasteful and treadmill system," but those very 

 properties constitute their essential worth in education, as a con- 

 venient mode of training. Their use, howevei, is one thing, and 

 their abuse another; and it would be as wrong to throw them 

 aside, as it is now to take them up as a panacea. It is no less a 

 mistake to teach the wrong things at the wrong time; in boyhood, 

 strict tochniciil training strengthens the miml, and notliing can 

 be more fatal than (jvcrtaxing the imagination or the reason. In 

 manhood, it is as great a waste to train the lower faculties and 

 neglect the higher. While we would strongly upludd what are 

 called tlie (dassics in the lower schools, so would we keep them 

 down in the higher schools, and give the time now devoted to 

 them to the mathanietical and practical sciences; to natural history, 

 the fine arts, literature, and political science. "Useful knowledge" 

 might be brought into our universities with goo<l, instead of being 

 part of the cram of boys and girls' boarding-schools and mechanics' 

 lustitutions. 



In coming to the important subject of classification in his in- 

 troduction, the writer alludes to the failure of Bacon in the clas- 

 sification which he has set forth in his treatise "De Augmento 

 Scientiarum" (p. 17.) and we agree with him that it was not because 

 science was not enough advanced, but because, though Bac<in's great 

 merit was his contempt for the philosophy of the tireeks, he could 

 not throw off, in mental science as in physical science, the dominion 

 of Aristotle. To late systems of classification attaches the evil, 

 that they want to chain down creation to lines and s(|uares and 

 circles, which have no place there. To Whewell, Mr. Fergusson 

 makes the objection of Hellenism, and he candidly proposes one 

 of his own as an outline to be filled up. 



The first step taken by Mr. Fergusson is the division into two 

 great natural classes of sciences and of arts; the former being a 

 knowledge of all that creation does without man's intervention; 

 the latter, a knowledge of all those modifications which man works 

 on nature's productions. 



Mr. Fergusson, like most of his school, and as opposed to the mor- 

 pliologists and sectarians, has a great dislike to metaphysicians, and 

 he says that the mistake of former classifiers has been classifying 

 according to some metaphysical idea of how it is perceived and 

 learned by man (p. 23.) lie asserts that the fundamental idea of 

 a science is its total independence of man, eitlier directly or indi- 

 rectly, and instances botany. "If man had never been, or were to- 

 morrow blotted-out from creation, would not the forests remain, 

 and the 'small flower lay its fairy gem beneath the shadow of the 

 giant tree.-"' AV^ould not every natural production of the vegetable 

 kingdom, and every phenomenon, remain identically the same, 

 whether man observed them or not? All that man can do is to 

 observe and try to understand; but he cannot alter one jot or 

 tittle." 



If we superinduce a change in the natural appearance of plants, 

 and increase the size of their roots or flowers, this belongs to the 

 province of the arts — agriculture, horticulture, or floriculture. 



This seems to us a good distinction, but Mr. Fergusson has not 

 supported it so fully as he might have done. Had he done so 

 rightly, he would have saved himself from representing the divi- 

 sion of labour and progress as the emblems of mind in distin- 

 guishing man from other classes of organised beings (p. 64.) Tlie 

 great distinction is the subordinate creative power, or voluntary 

 power of modifying the forms of creation. No other animal has 

 this power or exercises it, and it is the true means of progress. 

 The acknowledgment of this power at once establishes the 

 justice of Mr. Fergusson's two great divisions — physics, or a know- 

 ledge of nature; anthropics, or a knowledge of nature as modified 

 by man. 



Before these, he places those sciences which are universal in 

 their relation, and concern equally physics and anthropics. These 

 he names Universal Sciences. 



The Universal Sciences (A) are classified into Theology or a 

 knowledge of God, and Somatology or a knowledge of the laws 

 relating to bodies. Here is a singular defect; for our writer has 

 given no proper place to his own sciences of Biology, Ontology, and 

 Psychology, whicli may be named Pneumatology. His classifica- 

 tion of Somatology is not carried out on his own princijiles. If 

 termed I'oemology, it tlien includes the whole range of creation. 

 Atoms or particles are considered as in space, under the relations 

 of number and form; and in lime, under those of rcxt and mutiuii 

 (p. 35.) Poemology includes, therefore. Universal Mathematics 

 and Mechanics, in their relations of arithmetic and algebra; 

 geometry and analysis; statics and dynamics. It may, however, be 

 questioned, whether there is such a condition as rest in nature 

 (p. 35); and what is called statics, really considers a point or unit 

 in motion (p. 37); dynamics, continued motion. Arithmetic and 

 geometry, when considered in relation to numbers and bodies in 

 motion, or as here called in the condition of time, belong to a 

 higher range of science than when limited to fixed numbers and 

 forms. So far as nund)ers, rest, and motion, are concerned, these 

 must apply to what we have called Pneumatology; the laws of 

 which have been little investigated (p. 2().) The apjilication of 

 mathematics and mechanics to creation, constitutes the applied 

 sciences under head (A), as ojitics, perspective, hydrostatics, hydro- 

 dynamics, electro-statics, and dynamics, &c.; some of which, Mr. 

 Fergusson has arranged among the i)ure sciences. The forces ex- 

 erted by vegetable or animal life, the combined influence of vit:.l 

 dynamics and physical dynamics, and the combination of these again 

 w'ith mental forces, call for a systematic study which they have 

 not yet received. So linig as our mathematics and mechanics are 

 those of matter only, the highest branches of their ajiplications 

 remain untouched, aiid the political sciences must be arbitrary in 

 their principles and details. That a great deal is to be safely 



