FAMILIAR LECTURES ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. By Sir John Herschel. London and New York: Alexander Strahan.
This volume contains, among others, essays on the Sun, Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Comets, Celestial Measurement, Light, Force, and Atoms. The author, although upward of seventy years of [{431}] age, still writes with the enthusiasm, vigor and sprightliness of a young votary of science, and of course with the profundity, range of thought, weight of judgment, and vastness of learning belonging only to one who has grown gray scientific studies. The topics he discusses are among the most important and interesting in science. To their absorbing intrinsic interest is added the charm of Sir John Herschel's method and style of exposition. In literary merit and beauty of style this series of lectures exceeds any of the productions of the professors of physical science with which we are acquainted, and is equal to our best English classics. There is a pleasant playfulness also about the ancient astronomer, which must have made his lectures, as he delivered them, most delightful to listen to. The religious and moral tone of the lectures is elevated and wholesome. Without any set and formal attempts at moralizing or preaching, the illustrious author naturally and forcibly presents, on fitting occasions, the irresistible evidence afforded by the stupendous order of the universe of the infinite wisdom and goodness of God. Some few disparaging remarks about Catholic superstition occur in his pages; but not so many as we frequently meet with in similar works by English Protestants, who seem to be incapable of abstaining for a very long time from their favorite amusement—one which has as much popularity with the English public as the national game of "Aunt Sally."
Notwithstanding these little specimens of religious squibbery, which can do no harm to any intelligent Catholic, whether child or adult, we recommend this book most cordially to all our readers. It is a great advantage and pleasure to those intelligent and educated readers who have not had time or opportunity to study scientific text-books, to have the grand results of science placed before them in an intelligible and readable form. We cannot think of anything more desirable for the interests of general education, than a complete series of lectures, like those of the volume before us, on all the principal topics of the several grand divisions of physical science. The field of knowledge is now so vast, and includes so many distinct, richly cultivated enclosures, that even students must confine themselves to the thorough study of a few specialties. Yet, education ought to include a general survey of the universal domain of knowledge. Therefore, it becomes important to have generalizations, compendiums, the condensed cream of science, prepared by the hands of masters in the several branches of knowledge. We are grateful to Sir John Herschel for devoting his old age to the task of making the sublime discoveries of astronomical science intelligible to ordinary readers. His charming volume should be in every library, and read by every one who takes pleasure in solid knowledge communicated in the clearest and most agreeable manner.
THE RISE AND THE FALL; OR, THE ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. In three parts. Part I. The Suggestion of Reason. II. The Disclosure of Revelation. III. The Confirmation of Theology. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
A very thoughtful, sensible, calmly written book, pervaded by a high tone of moral and religious sentiment. The modest, anonymous author may be called an orthodox Protestant semi-rationalist. He takes Scripture as furnishing certain revealed data on which the individual reason must construct a rational theorem of religion. Revelation, as apprehended by the individual reason, being a variable quantity, of course dogmas are reduced to mere hypothesis more or less probable, according to the force of the argument which sustains them. We have, accordingly, about as ingenious and plausible an hypothesis of original sin as any one can well make who does not begin with the true conception as given him by the Catholic dogma. The author's hypothesis is, that Adam, having been created in the intellectual, but not in the moral order, was elevated to the moral order through his own act, thereby contracting a liability to sin as incidental to moral liberty, which he transmitted together with the moral nature to his posterity. In this way sin entered into the world through Adam, not by an imputation or infusion of his sin into his descendants, but as an incidental consequence of the transfer of human nature into the sphere of moral obligation. The transgression of Adam and Eve the author considers not to have been a sin at all, but an act [{432}] without any moral character, like that of a young child climbing to the roof of a house; a bold experiment which the inexperience of infant man led him to hazard without regard to the unknown consequences.
We consider the effort to determine the questions discussed by the author, from the data admitted by him, to be as impossible a task as to calculate the distance of a fixed star which makes no parallax. The oscillation of the ground, of the building, and of the instrument used by the astronomer, and the apparent or proper motions of the stars, may deceive him by an apparent parallax, from which he will make a plausible but illusory calculation. The application suggests itself. We have already discussed the same questions, from the data furnished by revealed Catholic dogmas, and are now engaged in discussing them in the series of articles entitled "Problems of the Age;" and it is, therefore, superfluous to enter here into a new discussion of the same topics.
We are glad to see these questions discussed, and always read with interest what is written by a candid, earnest, well-informed, and able writer like the author of this book. With many of his views we cordially agree, and recognize the justice, force, and beauty of many of his observations. We like him particularly for his clear views of the goodness and justice of God, the freedom of man, the negative character of evil, the worth and excellence of moral virtue; and for his denial of physical depravity, of a dark, inevitable doom preceding all personal existence or accountability, and similar fatalistic doctrines of the old Protestant theological systems. While, however, the moderate rationalism of the author avails so far as to refute certain systems or doctrines which are contrary to reason, and to furnish certain fragmentary portions of a better system, it is not sufficient to make a complete synthesis between reason and revelation. Catholic philosophy alone is competent to achieve this mighty and, indeed, superhuman task.