We would not be charged with the superfluity of commending to scholars the writings of Mr. Spencer. They have long ago found them out. It is to the mass of working men and women who make time for a solid book or two in the course of the year that we submit their claims. While those who have the leisure and training to realize Mr. Spencer's system as a developed unity must necessarily be few, no reader of tolerable intelligence can fail to find much of interest and suggestion in its several parts. With a common allowance for the abstruse nature of the subjects of which he treats, Mr. Spencer may be called a popular writer. His philosophical terminology will not be found troublesome in those of his writings which will first attract the reader. The "Social Statics," the "Essays," and the treatise on "Education" are very clearly, as well as most gracefully, written. And after these have been mastered, most readers will not be repelled by the less easy reading of the "Principles of Psychology," and the "New System of Philosophy." All these works are rich in materials for forming intelligent opinions, even where we are unable to agree with those put forward by the author. Much may be learnt from them in departments in which our common educational system is very deficient. The active citizen may derive from them accurate, systematized information concerning his highest duties to society, and the principles on which they are based. He may gain clearer notions of the value and bearing of evidence, and be better able to distinguish between facts and inferences. He may find common things suggestive of wiser thought—nay, we will venture to say, of truer emotion—than before. For Mr. Spencer is not of that school of "philosophy" which teaches the hopelessness of human effort, and, by implication, the abandonment of moral dignity. From profound generalizations upon society, he rises to make the duty of the individual most solemn and imperative. Above all, he has this best prerogative of really great thinkers,—he is able to change sentiments to convictions.
If we have not particularized the claims of the single volume whose title is at the head of our notice, it is because all that Mr. Spencer has written moves towards one end and is equally worthy of attention. The essays here given are selected from two series, the first published in 1857, the second in 1863. The present arrangement has been chosen by the author as more suitable to develop the general purpose which governs his work. While the doctrine of Evolution is more or less illustrated in each of these papers, the variety of subjects discussed must touch at some point the taste and pursuit of any reader. From "Manners and Fashion" to "The Nebular Hypothesis" is a sweep bold enough to include most prominent topics with which we are concerned. Indeed, we can recall no modern volume of the same size which so thoroughly credits its author with that faculty of looking about him which Pope thought it was man's business to exercise. There are the current phrases, "seeing life," and "knowing the world," which generally used to signify groping in the dirtiest corners of the one and fattening lazily upon the other; but if it were possible to rescue such expressions from their vulgar associations, we think that a candid reader would apply the best conceptions they suggested to the writer of the discussions here collected. The world as it is to-day is seen by Mr. Spencer as by few living men. The sciences, which taken singly too often seem only good to expel the false, have been summoned together to declare the true. Not Nature alone, but Humanity, which is greater than Nature, must be interrogated for answers that shall satisfy the ripest reason of the age. By the rare gifts of comparison which turn to account his wide observations, Mr. Spencer has already established principles which, however compelled for a time to compromise with prejudices and vested interests, will become the recognized basis of an improved society.
Our only interest in recommending this author to our countrymen comes from the conviction that he is peculiarly capable of impressing for good the present condition of our national character. By giving us fuller realizations of liberty and justice his writings will tend to increase our self-reliance in the great emergency of civilization to which we have been summoned. "Our Progressive Independence," so brilliantly illustrated by Dr. Holmes, emancipating us from foreign fine-writing, leaves us free to welcome the true manhood and mature wisdom of Europe. In the time of our old prosperity, amusing a leisure evening over Kingsley or Ruskin, we were tempted to exclaim, with Sir Peter Teazle, "There's nothing half so noble as a man of sentiment!" But in these latter days we have seen "Mr. Gradgrind" step from Dickens's wretched caricature to bring his "facts" to the great cause of humanity, while "Joseph Surface" reserved his "sentiments" for the bloody business by which Slavery sought to subject all things to herself. We have seen the belles-lettres literature of England more deeply disgraced than when it smirked before the harlots of the second Charles, or chanted a blasphemous benediction over George IV. But the thought and science of the Old World it is still our privilege to recognize. And it can hardly be necessary to say that the sympathies of Mr. Spencer, like those of Mill and Cochin, have been with the government and loyal people of the United States. And so we take especial pleasure in mentioning that a considerable interest in the American copyright of his writings has been secured to the author, and also, despite the facilities of reading-clubs and circulating-libraries, that they are emphatically books to own.
Poems. By Frederick Goddard Tuckerman. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
These poems show by internal evidence that they are the productions of a man of refined organization and delicate sensibility to beauty, who has lived much in solitude and tasted of the cup of sorrow. Of decided originality in intellectual construction it cannot be said that they give emphatic proof: the poet, as Schiller has said, is the child of his age, and Mr. Tuckerman's poetry not unfrequently shows that he has been a diligent student of those masters in his art who have best caught and reproduced the spirit of the times in which we dwell. It has one quality to a high degree,—and that is, a minute knowledge of the peculiarities of the natural world as it appears in New England. In his long woodland walks, he has kept open an eye of observation as practised as that of the naturalist. The trees, the shrubs, the flowers of New England are known to him as they are to few. He is tempted to draw too largely upon this source of interest: in other words, there is too much of description in his volume. Life is hardly long enough for such elaborate painting. We may admire the skill of the delineation, but we cannot pause sufficiently before the canvas to do full justice to the painter. Those poems in which Mr. Tuckerman expresses the emotions of bereavement and sorrow are those which have the highest merit in point of thought and expression. They are full of tenderness and sensibility; but the poet should bear in mind that strings which vibrate such music should be sparingly struck.
It may be somewhat paradoxical to say so, but it appears to us that the poetry of Mr. Tuckerman would be improved, if it had more of prose in it. It does not address itself to common emotions and every-day sympathies. His flour is bolted too fine. One must almost be a poet himself to enter into full communion with him. In intellectual productions the refining process should not be carried too far: beyond a certain point, what is gained in delicacy is lost in manliness and power.
Possibilities of Creation; or, What the World might have been. A Book of Fancies. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.
The author describes his work as a treatise of the Bridgewater class. We should rather describe it as a reductio ad absurdum in Natural Philosophy. A great deal of humor, ingenuity, and information are brought into play to turn the world upside-down, for the very laudable purpose of demonstrating that it is better to be right side up,—a method of demonstration curious and interesting enough, if comprised in a single essay, but rather long-drawn-out, when spread over four hundred pages. Suppose, for instance, is the writer's mode of argument, a malicious demon let loose, with power to set the earth topsy-turvy, on condition of keeping it still an earth. With what exultation does he bestride the Himalayas to watch the convulsions which he causes! How does he kick his heels against the mountain-flanks, in ecstasy at seeing men bleached and blistered with the chlorine or nauseated with the sulphuretted hydrogen which he has substituted for our wholesome and pleasant air! Or what should we do, if potato-roots had happened to be moistened with gin instead of water? What if men, instead of standing god-like erect, had been great balls of flesh, rolling along the ground as best they could,—if Young's poetical figure had been a practical truth, and this globe were the Bedlam of the universe,—if the fixity of Nature had been shattered, and we sat down at our feasts to find the soup bitter as strychnine, the wine changed into vinegar, and mild ale fiery as vitriol? What if wrinkles and gray hairs came in the twinkling of an eye,—if children were born with matured minds,—if no one were capable of anger,—and men started at the same point to arrive at the same conclusions? In short,—
"If all the world was apple-pie,
And all the sea was ink,
And all the trees were bread and cheese,
What should we have for drink?"
To all which startling inquiries we are fain to say, that, if Merrie England sits under her present squally skies in such a frame of bliss that she must have recourse to her imagination, when she wishes to contemplate a nice little imbroglio, she must be awarded the palm for being what Mark Tapley would call "jolly under creditable circumstances." For ourselves, we frankly confess that we find quite trouble enough in steering among the realities of creation, without caring to venture far out among its possibilities.