354 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 142. 



waves from the latter cause were so greatly mag- 

 nified beyond anything he had ever before ob- 

 seirved that he thinks there can be no reasonable 

 doubt of theu' reality as the result of the explosion. 

 A second and still more violent commotion was 

 observed 10 or 15 seconds later, and a third even 

 greater disturbance occurred about the same 

 length of time following the second. At 11:18:15 

 A. M. , the entire surface of the mercury under the 

 objective appeared to sway back and forth over 

 a space certainly as great as one five hundredth of 

 an inch. This action continued eight or ten seconds, 

 and at the end of about 20 seconds there was 

 almost an entu-e subsidence of the commotion. 

 From this instant the recurring disturbances 

 gradually diminished, and at 11:20 a. m. they had 

 entirely ceased. At this time the ice wagon was 

 directly opposite the observatory. 



The waves of disturbance certainly increased in 

 amplitude until 11:18:15 a. m., and gradually di- 

 minished after that time. The intervals between 

 the waves ajDpeared to be about 15 seconds, but 

 attention was not withdrawn to the chronometer 

 to be accurate as to this. Professor Rogers is not 

 quite certain whether there were three or fom- 

 waves preceding the one having the gi'eatest am- 

 plitude. The direction of the waves as indicated by 

 the movement of the spot reflected on the mercury 

 surface, was certainly not due east and west, but 

 rather about 15 degrees from the north and south 

 line ; that is, north of east and south of west. On 

 the next following day, by prearrangement with 

 the driver, an ice wagon was started from about 

 opposite the observatory, to be driven raj)idly 

 away. Under these circumstances, only a very 

 slight tremor of the mercury surface was visible, 

 while the cart was traversing a distance of about 

 750 feet, after which the tremor ceased. The 

 readings of the clu'onometer were corrected to 

 give eastern time, as above stated. 



SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION OF 

 COMTE. 

 This is one of the ablest works of the well-known 

 author, and is a decidedly agreeable indication of 

 the spu'it just now prevalent in the better sort 

 of philosophical discussion. When the British 

 Hegelian movement began, a score of years ago, 

 with Dr. Stirling's ' Secret of Hegel,' it was on its 

 face an intolerant and exclusive movement. As 

 popular English thought had no organ for under- 

 standing the master, and merely felt that Dr. 

 StMing had ' kept his secret,' so the Hegehan 

 leader himself expressed a bitter contempt for 

 popular English thought, and mutual advantage 



The social philosophy and religion of Comte. By Ed- 

 ward Cairo, L.L.D. New York, slacmilla.i, l'>^5. 



for the disputants seemed hopeless. The new 

 Hegelianism looked like a new patent plan of sal- 

 vation, with nothing to offer save to the faithful. 

 Younger HegeUans in the British universities, 

 equally learned in their chosen field, but less vain 

 of their skill, have changed in latter days this for- 

 bidding exclusiveness. They have seen that a 

 doctrine which pretends to be universal, cannot 

 possibly be content with a merely scholastic intole- 

 rance and formalism. They have felt that if 

 Hegelianism is of universal significance for human 

 thought, it can be so only in case universal human 

 thought is already in its actual essence, Hegelian^ 

 however unconscious the natural man may be of 

 his discipleship. A system is of one sort when it 

 says : " I express what you heretics shall become 

 ere you shall escape from your natural and utterly 

 lost state ;" and of quite another sort when it says : 

 " I express what you, as genuine human thinkers,, 

 already in your thought unwittingly are and aim 

 to be." Now if there is any truth essential to 

 genuine Hegehanism, it is that tliis latter attitude 

 is the correct one towards the thought of any 

 active and sincerely progressive age like the pres- 

 ent. The Hegelian system pretends to have mean- 

 ing only for an actual concrete world, and loses 

 sense whenever it is presented as a remote plan of 

 a purely abstract and ideal world. And so the 

 healthy effort of the younger British Hegelians to 

 drop Dr. Stirling's ' head-boy ' airs, to cease boast- 

 ing of the skill required for seeing through the 

 Hegelian mill-stone, and to tell us a straight story 

 about what human thought is and does, is an 

 effort of a most gi-atifying sort. To be sure, this 

 effort must not be confounded with any debased 

 ' popularizing ' of philosophical study, such as 

 should overcome difficulties only by keepmg them 

 below the horizon. The more recent British He- 

 gehan books and articles are not very easy read- 

 ing. But they have a most stimulating air of 

 actuality about them, and if Prof. Caird is not 

 always so robust and direct in speech as some of 

 his feUows, he at least shows a very sincere effort 

 to continue his studious progress earthwards ; and 

 we may hope that he will ere long reach his goal. 

 This undertaking then, to show not that human 

 thought must needs put on the Spanish boots of 

 any man's terminology, but that the Hegelian 

 doctrine has expressed profound truths about 

 the unconscious spirit, and about the true mean- 

 ing and work of aU sound natural thought, is ex- 

 emplified by Prof. Caird in the volume before us, 

 by an appUcation of his method to a criticism of 

 Auguste Comte. Comte is, one would have sup- 

 posed, at the other pole from Hegel. One would 

 be amused to imagine them, in Walter Savage 

 Landor fashion, engaged in conversation, or, better,, 



