130 



SCIEWOE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 183 



It is my conviction that the hypothesis of pan- 

 genesis, botli in its original form and in all its 

 subsequent modifications, has been definitely set 

 aside. In its place we have the theory that the 

 nature of the germ, i.e., of the impregnated ovum 

 of each species, is the same over and over, not 

 because there is in each case a similar collocation 

 of gemmules or plastidules, but because the chro- 

 matine perpetuates itself, so that the same kind of 

 chromatine is found in the one generation as in 

 the generations preceding it and following it. 

 The child is like the parents, because its organiza- 

 tion is regulated by not mei^ely similar, but by some 

 of the same, chromatine as that of the parents. 

 Perhaps, instead of chromatine we ought to say, 

 in order to avoid an unjustifiable explicitness, 

 nuclear substance. 



When it is recalled that heredity is one of the 

 fundamental phenomena of life, and that hitherto 

 we have seen no hopeful way leading to its com- 

 prehension, we can understand the delight with 

 which biologists welcome the new theory and its 

 rich promises. Charles Sedgw^ick Mlnot. 



ROSMINI'S PSYCHOLOGY. 



This is the sixth volume of the translation 

 which Eosniini's English disciples have under- 

 taken to make of his principal writings, — a labor 

 of devotion surely, not only by reason of the mere 

 pains involved, but in view of the probable thank- 

 lessness of the English-reading public for whose 

 sake they are all taken. When one thinks of the 

 mere quantity of labor which Rosmini accom- 

 phshed in his not long life, one cannot refuse to 

 him the title of being one of the very small num- 

 ber of intellectual giants of the world. He is of 

 the race of the Aristotles, the St. Thomases, the 

 Leibnitzes, the Kants, and the Kegels. The mere 

 cogitative energy of him, too, is fully equal to 

 theirs. Every page he writes is filled with think- 

 ing as hard, subtle, and original as theirs ; and his 

 style is as clear and flowing as theirs is usually 

 the reverse. His learning is prodigious too. In 

 short, he is a miracle of intellectual force, com- 

 pared with whom a mei'e reviewer's mind is as a 

 midge against an elephant. But Rosmini is a 

 dead giant, and the reviewer can have it his own 

 way with him, because he is alive, and writes for 

 readers taught by all their Lockian and Protestant 

 education to treat the kind of thing that Rosmini 

 represents — thoroughgoing, concatenated, and 

 systematic ontologizing and theologizing by the 

 conceptions of principle and term, substance and 

 essence and act — as ' scholastic jargon,' and so to 



Psychology. By Antonio Rosmini Serbati. Vol. ii. Lon- 

 don, Kegan Paul, Trench <& Co., 1885. 8°. 



close their ears. Scholastic jargon, too, it seems 

 to this reviewer ; only he has a bad conscience 

 about saying it so shortly, and therewith turning 

 Rosmini over to the disdain of many of our native 

 Philistines who at bottom are spiritually unfit 

 to loosen his shoe. The last word has not yet 

 been said about scholasticism. We are all scho- 

 lastics without knowing it, so sure as we talk of 

 things and acts and essence and force. But we don't 

 elaborate our scholasticism, because Locke taught 

 us that to do so led to no practical use. The 

 only practical gain which accrues to a scholastic 

 from his elaboration of what we all believe, is 

 what Rosmini calls "the experience in himself of 

 a kind of jubilation and felicity, which is so pe- 

 culiar as to be unlike any other feeling and to 

 bear testimony to its infinite source." This is the 

 rapture of all intellectual order and harmony ; but 

 our race would willingly part with it, if only 

 thereby it could buy a new way of peeling pota- 

 toes, or of teaching children how to read. We 

 renounce one thing, scholasticism another. It is 

 not that the distinctions made by Rosmini and 

 other scholastics are false. On the contrary, they 

 seem for the most part true. They are one way 

 of seeing and naming the facts of life. But they 

 are sterile : we can deduce from them no immedi- 

 ate practical receipts. To peel potatoes, we must 

 look at other aspects of the world than substan- 

 tiality and accidentality and the distinction be- 

 tween immanent and transient acts. Many are 

 the aspects of every bit of reality, and all are 

 equally true. But each carries us a different way. 

 By a succession of accidents modern critics and 

 men of science have stumbled on the aspects 

 which lead to the ways of foreseeing and handling 

 particular material events. Together, these as- 

 pects form the armament of the scientific and 

 positivistic view of life, a hodge-podge of which 

 we moderns are very proud, but of which, great 

 as the practical fruits are, the speculative dignity 

 leaves much to be desired. Maybe some disciple 

 of Rosmini may show a path down from his 

 categories to the practical details of life. It were 

 sad that such strenuous and in many ways such 

 exquisite thinking as his should be among the 

 mere superfluities of human history. W. J. 



CLERKWS HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 



This is in some respects a remarkable book, and 

 takes its place at once in importance beside 

 Grant's ' History of physical astronomy,' which it 

 in a measure supplements. No clearer indication 



A popular history of astronomy during the nineteenth 

 century. By Agnes M. Clerkb. Edinburgh, Slack, 1885. 

 8°. 



