There is no connected account of American achievement in science. Strangely enough, the most pretentious American book on the history of science, Sedgwick and Tyler’s “Short History of Science” (New York: Macmillan, 1917), ignores the most notable figures among the author’s countrymen. A useful biographical directory under the title of “American Men of Science” (New York Science Press, 1910, 2d edition), has been compiled by Professor James McKeen Cattell; a third revised edition has been prepared and issued this year prior to the appearance of the present volume.
On the tendencies manifest in the United States there are several important papers. An address by Henry A. Rowland entitled “A Plea for Pure Science” (Popular Science Monthly, vol. LIX, 1901, pp. 170–188), is still eminently worth reading. The external conditions under which American scientists labour have been repeatedly discussed in recent years in such journals as Science and School and Society, both edited by Professor Cattell, who has himself appended very important discussions to the above-cited biographical lexicon. Against over-organization Professor William Morton Wheeler has recently published a witty and vigorous protest (“The Organization of Research,” Science, January 21, 1921, N. S. vol. LIII, pp. 53–67).
In order to give an understanding of the essence of scientific activity the general reader cannot do better than to trace the processes by which the master-minds of the past have brought order into the chaos that is at first blush presented by the world of reality. In this respect the writings of the late Professor Ernst Mach are unsurpassed, and even the least mathematically trained layman can derive much insight from portions of his book “Die Mechanik” (Leipzig, 7th edition, 1912), accessible in T. J. McCormack’s translation under the title of “The Science of Mechanics” (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co.). The section on Galileo may be specially recommended. Mach’s “Erkenntnis und Irrtum” (Leipzig, 1906) contains most suggestive discussions of the psychology of investigation, dealing with such questions as the nature of a scientific problem, of experimentation, of hypothetical assumptions, etc. Much may also be learned from the general sections of P. Duhem’s “La theorie physique, son objet et sa structure” (Paris, 1906). E. Duclaux’s “Pasteur: Histoire d’un Esprit” has fortunately been rendered accessible by Erwin F. Smith and Florence Hedges under the title “Pasteur, the History of a Mind” (Philadelphia; Saunders, 1920). It reveals in masterly fashion the methods by which a great thinker overcomes not only external opposition but the more baneful obstacles of scientific folk-lore.
R. H. L.
PHILOSOPHY
The omission of Mr. Santayana’s philosophy from the above account indicates no lack of appreciation of its merits. Although written at Harvard, it is hardly an American philosophy. On one hand, Mr. Santayana is free from the mystical religious longings that have given our Idealisms life, and on the other, he is too confident of the reality of culture and the value of the contemplative life to sanction that dominance of the practical which is the stronghold of instrumentalism.
The only histories of American Philosophy are those by Professor Woodbridge Riley. His “Early Schools” (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1907), is a full treatment of the period in question, but his “American Thought from Puritanism to Pragmatism” (H. Holt, 1915) is better reading and comes down to date. These are best read in connection with some history of American Literature such as Barrett Wendell’s “Literary History of America” (Scribner’s Sons, 1914). Royce’s system is given in good condensed form in the last four chapters of his “Spirit of Modern Philosophy” (Houghton Mifflin, 1899). Its exhaustive statement is “The World and the Individual” (2 vols., Macmillan, 1900–1). The “Philosophy of Loyalty” (Macmillan, 1908) develops the ethics, and the “Problem of Christianity” (2 vols., Macmillan, 1913), relates his philosophy to Christianity. Hocking’s religious philosophy is given in his “Meaning of God in Human Experience” (Yale University Press, 1912). His general position is developed on one side in “Human Nature and Its Remaking” (Yale University Press, 1918). Anything of James is good reading. His chief work is the “Principles of Psychology” (H. Holt, 1890), but the “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and Some of Life’s Ideals” (H. Holt, 1907) and the “Will to Believe” (Longmans, Green & Co., 1899), better illustrate his attitude toward life. “Pragmatism” (Longmans, Green & Co., 1907) introduces his technical philosophizing. His religious attitude can be got from the “Varieties of Religious Experience” (Longmans, Green & Co., 1902). Dewey has nowhere systematized his philosophy. Its technical points are exhibited in the “Essays in Experimental Logic” (University of Chicago Press, 1916). The “Influence of Darwin on Philosophy” (H. Holt, 1910) has two especially readable essays, one the title-essay, the other on “Intelligence and Morals.” The full statement of his ethics is the “Ethics” (Dewey and Tufts, H. Holt, 1908). He is at his best in “Education and Democracy” (Macmillan, 1916). “German Philosophy and Politics” (H. Holt, 1915) is a war-time reaction giving an interesting point of view as to the significance of German Philosophy. “The New Realism” (Macmillan, 1912) is a volume of technical studies by the Six Realists. “Creative Intelligence” (H. Holt, 1917), by John Dewey and others, is a similar volume of pragmatic studies. The reviews are also announcing another co-operative volume, “Essays in Critical Realism” by Santayana, Lovejoy and others. In a technical fashion Perry has discussed the “Present Tendencies in Philosophy” (Longmans, Green & Co., 1912), but the best critical reaction to American philosophy is that of Santayana: “Character and Opinion in the United States” (Scribner’s Sons, 1920). Santayana’s own chief philosophic contributions are the “Sense of Beauty” (Scribner’s Sons, 1896), and the “Life of Reason” (5 vols., Scribner’s Sons, 1905–6). The first two chapters of his “Winds of Doctrine” (Scribner’s Sons, 1913), on the “Intellectual Temper of the Age” and “Modernism and Christianity,” are also relevant. Brief but excellent expositions of Royce, Dewey, James, and Santayana by Morris R. Cohen have appeared in the New Republic, vols. XX-XXIII.
H. C. B.
LITERATURE
Perhaps the most illuminating books for any one interested in the subject of the essay on literature are the private memorials of certain modern European writers. For a sense of everything the American literary life is not, one might read, for instance, the Letters of Ibsen, Dostoievsky, Chekhov, Flaubert, Taine and Leopardi—all of which have appeared, in whole or in part, in English.