844 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lines, and one of the most skillful advo- 

 cates, whether of a good or of a mistaken 

 cause, that I have ever met. Herbert Spencer 

 I esteem, I may almost say reverence, as the 

 teacher of the soundest system of philosophy 

 the world has yet, in my judgment, known. 

 That a man whose researches reach so widely 

 should at times lall into error in matters of 

 detail may be readily admitted. Only a few 

 weeks ago I pointed out in the pages of my 

 weekly journal, "Knowledge," what I hold 

 to be an entirely erroneous view of Herbert 

 Spencer's respecting the probable origin of 

 the system of asteroids. Yet even in matters 

 of detail belonging to the work of specialists 

 he has been singularly clear-sighted. He first 

 pointed out the fallacies underlying the long- 

 accepted teaching respecting the stellar sys- 

 tem, star-clusters, nebulae, etc., which men 

 like Arago and Humboldt had dealt with 

 without detecting error. In every depart- 

 ment of science, in fact, though a specialist 

 in none, Herbert Spencer has left his mark. 



The attack in the " Edmburgh Eeview " 

 leaves Spencer's fame untouched. It is evi- 

 dent in every line of this sour production that 

 the enmity which Sir Edmund Beckett has 

 always felt and expressed toward the teach- 

 ings of the school of which Spencer has been 

 the Bacon, the Darwin, and the Newton, has 

 made it impossible for him to read with even 

 average attention the work which he pretends 

 to criticise. He has not caught the veriest 

 glimmer of a notion of Mr. Spencer's real 

 meaning. From the only passage which he 

 claims to quote entire he has allowed several 

 important words to drop — by accident doubt- 

 less, but yet not by mere accident in tran- 

 scribing what he had already carefully read 

 and understood ; for the reasoning which fol- 

 lows falls to the ground so soon as the omit- 

 ted words are restored. 



Let one example suffice to show how ut- 

 terly Sir Edmund Beckett either has missed 

 or misrepresents the meaning of the famous 

 contemporary whom ho assaults. Herbert 

 Spencer, speaking of the Great First Cause, 

 transcending all laws, Absolute, Uncondi- 

 tional, says that we only perceive It, can only 

 recognize It, by the persistence of force which, 

 as it were, symbolizes It. Sir Edmund re- 

 gards this as equivalent to saying that the 

 Great First Cause is nothing else but persist- 

 ent Force. Beckett rebukes Spencer for speak- 

 ing of the " laws of motion " as the results of 

 experience, saying that Newton regarded them 

 as self-evident. He must have forgotten New- 

 ton's " Principia," where these laws are pre- 

 sented by Newton as now spoken by Spen- 

 cer. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Hand-Book of Sanitary Information for 

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 Care of Contagious Diseases, Disinfec- 

 tion, Food, and Water. With Appen- 

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 Sanitary Inspector of the New York City 

 Health Department. New York : D. Ap- 

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 There are now but few persons who 

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 preservation of health, is without value. 

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 for the maintenance of health and life is 

 the supremest earthly interest. It may of 

 course be said that our fathers got along 

 very well without all this bother about ven- 

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