In celebrating this birth and growth of science, in treating it as the central and commanding fact of modern times, and in suggesting the vast modification of beliefs and habits of thought which this must effect, Dr. Draper has a large theme, and he treats it con amore. In this respect, his book has value, and is worth its cost to himself and his readers. In some branches of science, moreover, as in Physiology, and in questions of vital organization generally, he is to be named among the authorities, and we gladly attend when he raises his voice.
Yet even in respect to this feature, his work cannot be praised without reserve. Though a man of scientific eminence, yet in the pure and open spirit of science it is impossible for him to write. He is a dogmatist, a controversialist, a propagandist. No matter of what science he treats, his exposition ever has an aim beyond itself. It is always a means to an end; and that end is always a dogma. For example, he has written a work on Human Physiology; and in the present volume he avows that his "main object" therein was to "enforce the doctrine" of the "absolute dominion of physical agents over organic forms as the fundamental principle in all the sciences of organization." This "main object" is no less dear to him in the work immediately under consideration. He still teaches that the primitive cell, with which, it is supposed, all organisms begin, is in all the same, but, being placed in different situations, is developed here into a man, and there into a mushroom. "The offspring," he says, not without oracular twang, "is like its parent, not because it includes an immortal typical form, but because it is exposed in development to the same conditions as was its parent." Behold a cheap explanation of the mystery of life! If one inquire how the vast variety of parental conditions was obtained, Dr. Draper is ready with his answer:—"A suitableness of external situation called them forth," quoth he. An explanation nebulous enough to be sage!
Behold, therefore, a whole universe of life constructed by "Situations"! "Situations" are the new Elohim. They say to each other, "Let us make man"; and they do it! But they cannot say, "Let us make man in our own image"; for they have no image. No matter: they succeed all the same in giving one to man! Wonderful "Situations"! Who will set up an altar to almighty "Situations"?
We have ourselves a somewhat Benjamite tongue for pronouncing the popular shibboleths, but, verily, we would sooner try the crookedest of them all than endeavor to persuade ourselves that in a universe wherein no creative idea lives and acts "external situations" can "call forth" life and all its forms. We can understand that a divine, creative idea may develop itself under fixed conditions, as the reproductive element in opposite sexes may, under fixed conditions, prove its resources; but how, in a universe devoid of any productive thought, "external situations" can produce definite and animate forms, is, to our feeble minds, incomprehensible. Verily, therefore, we will have nothing to do with these new gods. The materialistic savans may cry Pagani at us, if they will; but we shall surely continue to kneel at the old altars, unless something other than the said "Situations" can be offered us in exchange.
We complain of Dr. Draper that he does not write in the spirit of science, but in the spirit of dogmatism. We complain of him, that, when he ostensibly attempts a piece of pure scientific exposition, his thought always has a squint, a boomerang obliquity; it is afflicted with strabismus, and never looks where it seems to look. He approaches history only to subject it to the service of certain pet opinions already formed before his inspection of history began. He seeks only to make it an instrument for the propagation of these. He is a philosophical historian in the same sense that Bossuet was a philosophical historian. Each of these seeks to subject history to a dogma. The dogma of Bossuet is Papal Catholicism; that of Dr. Draper is the creative supremacy of "Situations" and "the insignificance of man in the universe."
It is quite proper for Dr. Draper to appear as a polemic in science, if he will. It is not advocacy per se of which we complain; it is advocacy with a squint, advocacy round a corner. If he wishes to prove the creative efficacy of "Situations," let him do so; but let him not in doing so seem to be offering an impartial exposition of Human Physiology. If he wishes to prove that physical science is the only rational thing in the world, he may try; but let him not assume to be writing a history of intellectual development. If he would convince us that history has epochs corresponding to those of individual life, we will listen; but we shall listen with impatience, if it appear after all that he is merely seeking, under cover of this proposition, to further a low materialistic dogma, and convince us of "man's insignificance in the universe."
We are open to all reasonings. Any decent man, who has honorably gone through with his Pythagorean lustrum of silence and thought, shall, by our voice, have his turn on the world's tribune; and if he be honest, he shall lose nothing by it. But we hate indirections. We hate the pretension implied in assuming to be an authoritative expounder, when one is only an advocate. And, still further, we shall always resist any man's attempt to make his facts go for a great deal more than they are worth. Let him call his ten ten, and it shall pass for ten; but if he insist on calling it a thousand, we shall not acquiesce. The science of Physiology is just out of its babyhood. Of the nervous system in particular—of its physiology and pathology alike—our knowledge is extremely immature. We are just beginning, indeed, to know anything scientifically on that subject. The attempt in behalf of that little to banish spiritual philosophy out of the world, and to silence forever the voice of Human Consciousness, is a piece of pretension on behalf of which we decline to strain our hospitality.
Our notice of this work would, however, be both incomplete and unjust, did we forbear to say, that, in its avowed idea, the author has got hold of a genuine analogy. Not that we approve the details of his scheme; the details, we verily believe, are as nearly all wrong as an able and studious man could make them. But the general idea of a correspondence between individual and social life, of an organic existence in civilizations and a consequent subjection to the law of organisms, is a rich mine, and one that will sooner or later be worked to profit. And the definite, emphatic announcement of it in Dr. Draper's work, however awkwardly done, suffices to make the work one of grave importance.
Every system of civilization is in some degree special. None is universal; none represents purely the spirit of humanity; none contains all the possibilities of society. Not being universal, none can be, in its form, perpetual. The universal asserts its supremacy; all that is partial must be temporary. The human spirit takes back, as it were, into its bosom each sally of civilization before pulsing anew. Thus, even on their ideal side, civilizations have their law of limitation; and to know what this law of limitation definitely is constitutes now one of the great desiderata of the world. We believe, that, ceteris paribus, the duration of a civilization is proportioned to its depth and breadth,—that is, to the degree in which it represents the total resource and possibility of the human spirit.
Again, every system of civilization has a body, an institution, an established and outward interpretation of social relationship. In respect to this it is mortal. In respect to this it has a law of growth and decay. In respect to this, moreover, it is subject to what we call accident, the chances of the world. In fine, the bodies of individuals and of civilizations, the fixed forms, that is, in which they are instituted, serve the same uses and obey the same law.