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ALMOST every age of human history has either given to itself, or received from posterity, some epithet, marking, whether truly or fancifully, its distinctive place in the records of the world. It would be easy to find and to apply many such epi

thets to the remarkable period in which our own lot is cast; abounding, as it does, in characteristics which distinguish it from any that have ever gone before. One, which we can not doubt that our own posterity will adopt, inasmuch as it affirms a fact equally obvious and certain, is, that we are living in an age of transition, a period when changes, deeply and permanently affecting the whole condition of mankind, are occurring more rapidly, as well as extensively, than at any prior time in human history. The fact is one which lies on the very surface of all that we see in the world around us. No man of common understanding, even in the narrowest circle of observation, but must mark the continual shifting of things before The Soul in Nature. By the late. Professor him; reversing, in many cases, the maxOERSTED. Translated by the Misses HORNER. Lon-ims and usages which are the inheritance

Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, the Unity of Worlds, and the Philosophy of Creation. By the Rev. BADEN POWELL, M.A., F.R.S., etc., Savilian Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford. London: 1855. The Correlation of Physical Forces. By W. R. GROVE, Q.C., M.A., F.R.S., etc. Third Edition. London: 1855.

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On the Conservation of Force. By Professor FARADAY, D.C.L., F.R.S., etc., etc.

Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, with Addresses and other Pieces. By Sir JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL, Bart., K.H. London: 1857.

don: 1852.

Nomos. An Attempt to demonstrate a Central
Physical Law in Nature. London: 1856.
VOL. XLV.-NO. IL

of centuries, and altering, in a thousand ways, the present conditions of material

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trious exceptions, it is impossible to make the comparison, and not to see that the physical researches of our own day have a larger scope and more connected aimthat experiment is no longer tentative merely, but suggested by views which stretch beyond the immediate result, and hold in constant prospect those general laws which work in the universe at large. Nor is the power so gained ever now permitted to be dormant or inert. If thought suggests experiment, experiment ministers

and social life. The philosopher who looks from a higher level, and upon a more distant horizon, discerns in these changes a wider and more lasting influence. He sees that they involve the relations of races and communities of men over the whole face of the globe; and that they are destined, sooner or later, to obliterate many of those diversities and lines of demarkation, which, however originally produced, seemed almost to dissever the species, in the contrasts of human existence they afford. He takes fur-fresh materials to thought; and the phither note of what is the great agent in this and other changes, that wonderful progress in physical philosophy, which has placed new powers in the hands of man -powers transcending in their strangeness and grandeur the wildest fables and dreams of antiquity; and the effects of which are already felt in every part of the habitable earth. He sees the march of discovery continually going on; new paths opened; new instruments and methods of research brought into action; and new laws evolved, giving connection and combination to the facts and phenomena which unceasingly accumulate around us.

losopher working bodily with the new forces at his command, and under the guidance of hypotheses, which extend to the very confines of human intelligence, obtains results which almost startle the imagination by the inroads they seem to make on the mysteries beyond. When flying along the railroad at forty or fifty miles an hour, with a slender wire beside us, conveying with speed scarcely measurable, the news of nations, the demands of commerce, or the fates of war, we have an example (though few care to estimate it fully) of those mighty attainments which bind, to do our bidding, elements before unknown or uncontrolled by man; and which give certainty of other and similar attainments in time yet to come.

Closely, or even necessarily, connected with the changes last denoted, is the topic to which, as suggested by the Admitting that hypothesis, and this works before us, we would especially often of very adventurous kind - the invite the attention of our readers. We" animi jactus liber "—blends itself largeallude to the concurrent changes taking place in the spirit and scope of physical philosophy at large; scarcely less remarkable in their nature and influence than the discoveries in which they originate, and by which they are sanctioned. Modern science, in its dealings with the great physical powers or elementary forces which pervade and govern the material world, has been led, or even forced, into a bolder form and method of inquiry. Inductions of a higher class have been reached, and generalizations attained, going far beyond those subordinate laws in which science was formerly satisfied to rest. Experiment and observation, as the agents in acquiring knowledge, must always to a certain extent be alike in their objects and methods of pursuit. But the precision and refinements of modern experimental research-partly due to greater perfection of instruments, partly to the higher principles of inquiry pursued-strikingly distinguish it from that of any ante. rior time. With every allowance for illus

ly with the recent progress of physical science, we would in no way impugn this powerful instrument and aid of research; the use of which, under due limitation, is justified equally by reason and experience. In all inquiries of this nature, except those of strictly mathematical kind, certainty and conjecture necessarily and closely commingle. The speculation or bare analogy of one day becomes the scientific induction of the next; and even where hypothesis is not thus happily fated, it still has often high value as a partial interpreter and provisional guide to the truths sought for. All sciences, and very especially those of optics, of chemistry, of electricity, furnish notable instance to this effect; and have rescued hypothesis, in the philosophical sense of the term, from the vague reproach which it was once the fashion to cast upon it. Such vindication, however, affords no sanction to that spirit, which pushes mere speculation far in advance of experiment and observation, and adventures rashly into fields not prepared

for human culture, if indeed ever accessible to it. Eccentric theories of this kind, the produce of imperfect knowledge or illogical understanding, will ever be found in the path of science; perplexing, it may be, to those who loosely follow it; but disappearing one after another, as truth pursues its steady course amidst them. The mysteries of organic life, approached with caution by the true philosopher, are an especial seduction to these framers of new systems-systems which it becomes easy to coin, under shelter of a vague phraseology, and aided by the very obscurity of the subject.

attainments still possible to human reason or human power. These are the points to which we now seek especially to direct attention. We might easily double or treble the number of the volumes thus referred to, were we to include even a small proportion of the systematic or elementary works; the lectures, memoirs, or addresses to scientific bodies; or the articles in reviews and other periodicals, which, under the influence of this new vigor of inquiry, and the practical popularity of many of its topics, have opened their pages to meet the demand for more familiar information than scientific treatises can afford. These topics, in fact, include not only the sciences treating of the simpler inorganic conditions of matter, and the elementary forces-heat, light, electricity, gravitation, chemical affinity, which act upon the material world-but also animal and vegetable physiology in their whole extent, and those wonderful laws of organic life, connecting matter with vitality, instincts and intellect, under the numberless forms and species which are placed before us for our contemplation. În sur

While speaking thus generally on the spirit and methods of modern science, we may notice the fact, that there is scarcely one of the legitimate hypotheses of our own time, or even any great law founded on the soundest inductions from experiment, which is not prefigured in some way, more or less distinctly, in the philosophy of former ages. We might, had we space for it, give many curious instances of these anticipations; and assign reasons why they should especially be found in the more recondite parts of phi-veying this vast field of natural knowlosophy, such as the origin of matter, the ledge, for the purposes just indicated, we qualities and combinations of atoms, the must of necessity limit ourselves to a theories of space, ether, forces, etc. broad outline; thereby forfeiting in some transcendental questions which press part the interest which belongs to the themselves upon the thought of the familiar details and illustrations of each metaphysician, as well as of the natural- particular science; but gaining in comist and mathematician, in contemplating pensation a more connected and comprethe phenomena of the universe. Through hensive view of the relation between the these avenues of thought and speculation, different sciences; and of those great little aided by experiment or systematic discoveries in all, which are ever tending observation, the subtlety of a few rare to bring them into closer approximation spirits in each early age came upon the and subjection to common laws. traces of physical truths, which modern need scarcely dwell on the importance of science has approached by more certain such general views, and their influence on roads, and made the lawful prize of in- the spirit and progress of physical philosoductive research. What were then hasty phy. We shall have occasion immediateand transient glances into these profoundly to illustrate it, in speaking of the ef parts of philosophy, have now become a steady insight into the great physical laws under which are embodied all the phenomena of the natural world.

We have placed at the head of this article the titles of several recent works, well fitted, by their various merits and by the eminence of their authors, to illustrate the view we have briefly given of the present aspects of physical philosophy, as well as to indicate those future prospects of science, which may fairly be inferred from the spirit in which it is now pursued-the

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forts made by some of the most eminent men of science of our day, to give concentration and unity to parts of physical knowledge, and to classes of phenomena, hitherto regarded as having no co-relation or common principle of action.

We do not undertake to analyze in detail, or even to notice, all the works before us. To some of them, however, and especially to those placed first on the list, we must separately refer, inasmuch as they furnish the most able exposition of those doctrines and methods of modern science which it is our object to examine.

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And under this view we must first notice | fostered by ancient and popular belief, in-
the volume of the Rev. Baden Powell, cluding those which assume Scriptural au-
Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford;
not merely from the high scientific repu-
tation of the author, but as embodying,
and vindicating in great part, all the bold-
est conclusions derived from recent
research. Approaching our subject
through this work as the threshold, we
enter at once on the highest debatable
ground, amidst questions which have
more or less perplexed the reason of man
in all ages; formerly, as intellectual prob-
lems or paradoxes only-now, as the na-
tural or necessary result of those experi-
mental inquiries which have been carried
through every part of the material creation.
Professor Powell's work includes three
separate essays: one on the "Spirit of
Inductive Philosophy," another on the
"Unity of Worlds," the last on the "Phi-
losophy of Creation." The second of these
essays, though containing much other
valuable matter, is mainly an answer to
that remarkable volume entitled the Plu-
rality of Worlds, which, despite its anony
mous form and paradoxical argument,
has gained credit and weight in the public
mind from the eminent name attached to
its probable authorship. The curious
question raised, or rather revived, by this
work-one destined from its very nature
to be answered by presumption only-has
already elicited so much active contro-
versy, in which we have ourselves taken
part, that we refrain from touching upon
it, here; though we might fairly do so as
an example of the altered method in which
such controversies are now carried on,
and of the new class of proofs brought for-
ward for their solution. But of the first
and third of these essays of Professor
Powell we must speak more in detail, in
their bearing upon the subject before us.

They are written, we may first remark, with great vigor and ability of thought; with much of happy illustration, derived from the very large scientific resources cf the author; and in a style singularly fitted to these subjects by its clearness and precision. Of the boldness of the work, in advocating doctrines and hypotheses not yet fully matured by research, we have just spoken. It would not be a harsh criticism to say that Professor Powell shows a marked fondness for what is new and arduous in philosophy; and takes pleasure in stigmatizing, as hindrances to truth in physical science, all such opinions as are

thority for their foundation. In his just zeal against dogmatical authority, he sometimes falls into the opposite rashness of lending his authority and favor to hasty and partial experimental deductions; or to doctrines still in their infancy, and checked or controverted by opposite opinions of equal weight. To this temperament of mind, as we venture to describe it, we may attribute his somewhat eager adoption of the doctrines of "Transmutation of Species;" of "the Unity of Composition" as a principle in physiology; of the principle of "Continuity and immutability of physical laws in geology;" and of the Correlation or community of vital and physical forces in all the automatic acts of life, and even in many mental acts which may be thus regarded. His reasonings on the doctrine of Final Causes or Teleology, as it is now the fashion to call it, have the same character and bearing. All these are broad questions, and fairly open to argument and evidence. But we have the constant feeling in the volume before us, that the leaning is too much to one and the same side of these questions: we might fairly call it the paradoxical side; while admitting, at the same time, that paradoxes are often raised into the class of recognized truths; and, in a certain sense of the term, may even be deemed instruments of science, though instruments ever to be used with caution and forbearance. As a more special instance of what we have just mentioned, we might quote the sort of sanction our author gives to the crude experiments of Messrs. Crosse and Wickes on the seeming creation of animalcule life under certain conditions of the galvanic current ; a conclusion loosely drawn in its origin, without any known analogy, and not justified by any later research. On this point, as on many others in his third Essay on the "Philosophy of Creation," we find a close approximation to the doctrines of the Vestiges of Creation, another well-known work of our own time, which by its ability has contributed greatly to diffuse a taste for these transcendental inquiries in science-a dangerous effect, were it not corrected by the contemporaneous activity of those philosophers who make experiment and strict induction the sole measure and guides of their progress.

To the question stated above we may especially refer, as examples of the class of profound problems on which modern science exercises itself; seeking their solution by experiments and observations far more refined and exact than have ever before been applied to these inquiries. But there is another question largely discussed in Mr. Baden Powell's work, to which we would advert, as expounding better than any other the present spirit and scope of physical philosophy. This is the doctrine described by our author in his first essay, under the titles of "Unity of Sciences," and "Uniformity of Nature" terms meant to express, but expressing too strongly, those admirable generalizations which have connected under common laws phenomena seemingly the most remote and unlike, and are continually tending still further so to combine and concentrate them. Taking the subject in this general sense, we can not hesitate to regard it as one of the very highest which can be submitted to the human understand ing. The unfulfilled objects of science, as well as its ultimate end and aim, evidently lie in this direction; and none can be indifferent to the wonderful results which every year is disclosing to researches pursued on this principle. Among those who have labored most successfully for this especial object are the eminent men whose discoveries in particular branches of science have given them merited fame in the world. If out of many contemporaries we were to select a few who have done most to elevate physical science by generalization of its phenomena and laws, the names of Arago, Faraday, Herschel, and Humboldt occur at once as first and most illustrious in this career. These philosophers have looked upon the world of nature in its largest aspects, and made their several discoveries subservient to this great object; thereby widening the circle of facts and phenomena, and at the same time drawing them more closely towards that center in which we find so many sciences to converge.

Nevertheless we must not allow these terms of " Unity of Science," "Unity of Principle," and "Unity of Law," to usurp too much on the understanding. Professor Powell seems to us to give undue force to such phrases; which, strictly examined, have no counterpart or reality in our actual knowledge. It is true that

there is various high authority for their use, as for that of language analogous in effect. Humboldt, in several passages of his Cosmos, and, at an earlier period, D'Alembert and Laplace, have sanctioned the general conception, though not defining it sufficiently for any application beyond that attempt at generalization just noticed; and which would have existed, even if no such mysterious word as "Unity" had been used to signify the ultimate end in view. We readily admit it as probable or certain, that numerous facts, hitherto insulated or anomalous, and even whole classes of phenomena unexplained by science, will hereafter be submitted to common and known laws. And we further believe that many laws themselves, now of partial application, will hereafter merge in others of higher scope and generality. We shall speedily have to notice certain cases where this amalgation has so far advanced as to furnish an entirely new basis for research, scarcely seen or anticipated before. But admitting what we have full right and reason to presume, that this concentration may be carried yet much further, still the attainment or even the conception of unity, in any strict sense of the word, lies indefinitely beyond, shrouded by an obscurity which words may seek to penetrate, but which human intellect can reach only in that one sublime sense of the unity of the Divine Creating Power. We may reduce to a small number the many forms of matter which are elementary to our present knowledge; we may show the identity of certain forces hitherto deemed elementary by their mutual convertibility; we may accept the phrase of Laplace, "Les phénomènes de la Nature ne sont que les resultats mathématiques d'un petit nombre de lois immuables;" and yet we shall never prove that there is but one kind of matter, or one nature of force, or that a single law governs all the phenomena around us. To put forward, therefore, the phrase and conception of the "Unity of Science," as the final term of our labors, is to inflict a metaphysical issue upon them for which there is no warranty either in reason or practical use. Bishop Berkeley has somewhere spoken of ultimate ratios in mathematics as the "ghosts of departed quantities." With like reason we might call the unity of some of our modern philosophers the "ghost of departed pluralities;" having this quality of

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