SCIENCE. 



7 



most important philosophical works, and we do not re- 

 member any where to have noticed any evidence of con- 

 cern on the author's part to prove the existence of an 

 " Infinite and Eternal Spirit." On the contrary, we are 

 every where forbidden by him to regard the Infinite and 

 Eternal, or the Absolute, as either Spirit or matter. 

 Both of these " antithetical conceptions" are held to be 

 purely finite, relative, phenomenal. The absolute is sim- 

 ply " the unknown reality which underlies both," (see 

 First Principles, last sentence of the book, el passim.) 

 The absolute we are constantly reminded is " wholly 

 unknowable." It is neither Infinite and Eternal Spirit, 

 nor Infinite and Eternal Matter, but simply an altogether 

 indefinable and incognizable somewhat. " That through 

 which all things exist" is in Mr. Spencer's language, 

 "The Unknowable." 



The Unknowable is further held to manifest itself to 

 us only as an " inscrutable force" whose operation is ex- 

 clusively confined to the evolutionary and mechanical 

 " redistribution of matter and motion." Since this opera- 

 tion takes place under the form of rule or law, it is held 

 to conflict with, and render impossible, the supposed 

 " free will," and hence the truly spiritual nature of man. 



The case is therefore as follows : That there is an ab- 

 solute reality, we are held to know through " a dim" or 

 wholly "indefinite consciousness," which is called the 

 •'raw material of mind," but which utterly refuses to be 

 grasped, defined, or known. The " Infinite Something," 

 which is thus demonstrated for us, is, so far as our defin- 

 ite knowledge extends, and hence practically, an " Infin- 

 ite Nothing." Strictly known to us are only phenomena 

 aspect, which we term spiritual, ideal, or mental. But no 

 scientific interpretation of these is possible, no knowledge 

 proper is possible concerning them, except so far as they 

 are reducable, directly or proximately, to terms of the re- 

 distribution. of matter and motion in physiological pro- 

 cesses. All our definite knowledge, therefore, is both in its 

 data and its substance, exclusively physical and material- 

 istic, and even the " indefinite consciousness," by which 

 we are held to be assured that an Absolute Something 

 exists, in as regards both its subject and object, also 

 physical ; it is certainly not spiritual. 



Now, if God, provided he exist, is necessarily a spirit ; 

 if man, as the subject of religious emotions and relations, 

 must also be a free spirit ; and if, as is the case, there is 

 found in Mr. Spencer's philosophy no recognition of 

 either God or man as a spirit, then it is obvious that 

 much ground is given by Mr. Spencer for the supposition 

 that his doctrines — considered per se, or independently 

 of their author's intentions — are virtually atheistic and 

 anti-religious, and those who honestly entertain this sup- 

 position are entitled to be met, not simply with a vigorous 

 assertion that they are in error, but with a dispassionate 

 and objective demonstration that they are so. 



The whole basis of Mr. Spencer's theory of knowledge 

 is, as is well known, sensational and physical. From 

 such a basis it is and has always been found impossible 

 to rise to the recognition of the absolute as spirit, or 

 man as spirit, or to comprehend religion otherwise than 

 as a necessary historic incident in the development of 

 ideas. But the whole basis of human knowledge is not 

 sensational and physical. Free religion implies this, and 

 the grander historic forms of philosophy demonstrate it. 

 The pre-eminent intention of knowledge in physical 

 science is indeed sense. The attempt to make this cri- 

 terion universal leads necessarily to agnosticism with 

 reference to the non-sensible (the Spiritual, Living and 

 Powerful). But it is not science which dictates this at- 

 tempt, and so Mr. Spencer's agnosticism is not to be 

 charged to science. The rather, it is due to a purely 

 arbitrary determination on his part, supported, it is true, 

 by the influence of a conspicuous line of predecessors in 

 the history of British speculation. The fact that many 

 theologians have been equally — and some of them — e.g., 

 William of Ockham — even more absurdly agnostic than 



he, is not to Mr. Spencer's credit, but to the theologians' 

 discredit. Besides, the agnostic theologians have gener- 

 ally made vigorous affirmation, on the authority of the 

 heart, of that which to their heads was inscrutable. They 

 have, like Kant, practically affirmed that which seems 

 theoretically incomprehensible. However, all this be- 

 longs to the sadder side of the history of human thought. 

 Philosophy and theology have existed and still exist in 

 larger, more positive, and more fruitful forms, founded 

 cn a completer science of knowledge, which recognizes 

 the spiritual factor in knowledge, or the knowing agent, 

 and so, necessarily, the spiritual nature in the absolute 

 object of knowledge or God. 



We say, then, that Mr. Spencer is by no means to be 

 charged with intentional atheism or irreligion. To the- 

 ism and religion he gives all the meaning which it is possi- 

 ble for him to give them on the basis of that physico-scien- 

 tific theory of knowledge, which he sincerely believes to be 

 the only possible one. But this meaning really falls ab- 

 solutely short of meeting the actual requirements 

 of theislic doctrine and living religion. And Mr. Spencer's 

 doctrine in this regard is not that of science, whether 

 "popular" or otherwise, but of a highly artificial and 

 arbitrary " philosophy" It has no more necessary rela- 

 tion to the doctrine of evolution than to the doctrine of 

 gravitation, both of which have been and are (in some 

 form) unquestioningly held by many leaders in spiritual- 

 istic or positive (vs. agnostic) philosophy.. 



The dissemination of the eminently valuable results of 

 Mr. Spencer's scientific labors is certainly in place in a 

 Popular Science Monthly. But with what special pro- 

 priety such a periodical should also be made the peculiar 

 vehicle for the promulgation of his extra-scientific philos- 

 ophy it is hard to see. It is not that we would have a 

 line, wh ; ch Mr. Spencer has written, suppressed or kept 

 from the knowledge of the world. But regard for the 

 honor and purity of * science, to mention no other consid- 

 eration, is enough to make one ardently wish that it should 

 not be constructively put forward as sponsor for doc- 

 trines whose basis is only quasi-scientific, and which, in 

 truth, belong to another domain — the domain of philo- 

 sophical inquiry. — GEORGE S. Morris, Professor of 

 Philosophy, University of Michigan; and Lecturer in 

 the fohns Hopkins University. 



THE HOLLAND HYDROGEN FIRE APPARATUS. 



No little interest has been excited during the past year, 

 both in the scientific and practical world, by the remark- 

 able development of results from the Water Gas Appara- 

 tus of Dr. Charles Holland, in an ordinary locomotive, as 

 reported by a careful and disinterested observer, through 

 the daily press, and subsequently discussed from a scien- 

 tific point of view in this journal. 



A review of the subject, which has lost none of its im- 

 portance in the light of further experience and delibera- 

 tion, will be timely and interesting at the present date. 



At Flatbush, the apparatus was placed in the fire-box or furnace 

 of a large ( forty-ton ) passenger locomotive, of the usual coal- 

 burning pattern, with 16x24 inch cvhnders, 5-feet 2-inch driving 

 wheels, and a boiler 23 feet long. In place of the ordinary gTate 

 bars are laid three hollow bars or pipes the length of the furnace 

 (8 feet ). and from each side of each pipe rise burner-tips at short 

 intervals, making 352 in all. On these pipe-bars, as sleepers, is 

 laid a floor of iron plates studded with open thimbles, through 

 which the 352 burner tips rise to within half an inch of their open- 

 ings. Over the first 44 burners, next the door, are set four retorts 

 — heavy, hollow blocks of iron — in a row. Two of these retorts 

 receive naphtha, and two water or steam, through separate pipes, 

 and when heated, unite and discharge iheir vapors through con- 

 necting pipes into the pipe bars under the iron floor, and thtnce 

 through the 352 bu-ners. 



The observations at present available enable us merely 

 to compare the firing-up of the same locomotive to the 

 same pressure under substantially equivalent conditions, 



* By "science" we mean, in accordance with the now prevalent usage, 

 the mathematico-physical or descriptive science of sensible phenomena. 



