Poland
When, fixed in righteous wrath, a nation's eye
Torments some crowned tormentor with just hate.
Nor threat nor flattery can that gaze abate;
Unshriven the unatoning years go by;
For as that starry archer in the sky
Unbends not his bright bow, though early and late
The syren sings, and folly weds with fate,
Even so that constellated destiny
Which keeps fire-vigil in a night-black heaven,
Upon the countenance of the doomed looks forth
Consentient with a nation's gaze on earth:
To the twinned powers a single gaze is given;
The earthly fate reveals the fate on high—
A brazen serpent raised, that says, not "live," but "die."
Aubrey de Vere.
Professor Draper's Books. [Footnote 45]
[Footnote 45: 1. Human Physiology, Statical and Dynamical; or, Conditions and Course of the Life of Man. By J. W. Draper, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of New York. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1856. 8vo, pp. 649.
2. History of the Intellectual Development of Europe. By the same. Fifth edition. 1867. 8vo, pp. 628
3. Thoughts on the Civil Policy of America. By the same. Third edition. 1867. 8vo, pp. 323.
4. History of the American Civil War. By the same. In three volumes. Vol. I. 1867. 8vo, pp. 567.]
Professor Draper's works have had, and are having, a very rapid sale, and are evidently very highly esteemed by that class of readers who take an interest, without being very profoundly versed, in the grave subjects which he treats. He is, we believe, a good chemist and a respectable physiologist. His work on Human Physiology, we have been assured by those whose judgment in such matters we prefer to our own, is a work of real merit, and was, when first published, up to the level of the science to which it is devoted. We read it with care on its first appearance, and the impression it left on our mind was, that the author yields too much to the theory of chemical action in physiology, and does not remember that man is the union of soul and body, and that the soul modifies, even in the body, the action of the natural laws; or rather, that the physiological laws of brute matter, or even of animals, cannot be applied to man without many important reserves. The Professor, indeed, recognizes, or says he recognizes, in man a rational soul, or an immaterial principle; but the recognition seems to be only a verbal concession, made to the prejudices of those who have some lingering belief in Christianity, for we find no use for it in his physiology. All the physiological phenomena he dwells on he explains without it, that is, as far as he explains them at all. Whatever his personal belief may be, his doctrine is as purely materialistic as is Mr. Herbert Spencer's, which explains all the phenomena of life by the mechanical, chemical, and electrical changes and combinations of matter.
It is due to Professor Draper to say, that in this respect he only sins in common with the great body of modern physiologists. Physiology—indeed, all the inductive sciences—have been for a long time cast in a materialistic mould, and men of firm faith, and sincere and ardent piety, are materialists, and, therefore, atheists, the moment they enter the field of physical science, and deny in their science what they resolutely affirm and would die for in their faith. Hence the quarrel between the theologians and the savans. The savans have not reconciled their so-called science with the great theological truths, whether of reason or revelation, which only the fool doubts, or in his heart denies. This proves that our physicists have made far less progress in the sciences than they are in the habit of boasting. That cannot be true in physiology which is false in theology; and a physiology that denies all reality but matter, or finds no place in it for God and the human soul, is no true physiological science. The physiologist has far less evidence of the existence of matter than I have of the existence of spirit; and it is only by spirit that the material is apprehensible, or can be shown to exist. Matter only mimics or imitates spirit. The continual changes that take place from time to time in physiology show—we say it with all deference to physiologists—that it has not risen as yet to the dignity of a science. It is of no use to speak of progress, for changes which transform the whole body of a pretended science are not progress. We may not have mastered all the facts of a science; we may be discovering new facts every day; but if we have, for instance, the true physiological science, the discovery of new facts may throw new light on the science—may enable us to see clearer its reach, and understand better its application, but cannot change or modify its principles. As long as your pretended science is liable to be changed in its principles, it is a theory, an hypothesis, not a science. Physiologists have accumulated a large stock of physiological facts, to which they are daily adding new facts. We willingly admit these facts are not useless, and the time spent in collecting them is not wasted; on the contrary, we hold them to be valuable, and appreciate very highly the labor, the patient research, and the nice observation that has collected, classified, and described them; but we dare assert, notwithstanding, that the science of physiology is yet to be created; and created it will not be till physiologists have learned and are able to set forth the dialectic relations of spirit and matter, soul and body, God and nature, free-will and necessity. Till then there may be known facts, but there will be no physiological science. As far as what is called the science of human life, or human physiology, goes, Professor Draper's work is an able and commendable work; but he must permit us to say that the real science of physiology he has not touched, has not dreamed of; nor have any of his brethren who see in the human soul only a useless appendage to the body. The soul is the forma corporis, its informing, its vital principle, and pervades, so to speak, and determines, or modifies, the whole life and action of the human body, from the first instant of conception to the very moment of death. The human body does not exist, even in its embryonic state, first as a vegetable, then as an animal, and afterward as united to an immaterial soul. It is body united to soul from the first instant of conception, and man lives, in any stage of his existence, but one and the same human life. There is no moment after conception when the wilful destruction of the foetus is not the murder of a human life.
As we said on a former occasion, or at least implied, man, though the ancients called him a microcosm, the universe in little, and contains in himself all the elements of nature, is neither a mineral nor a vegetable, nor simply an animal, and the analogies which the physiologist detects between him and the kingdoms below him, form no scientific basis of human physiology, for like is not same. There may be no difference that the microscope or the crucible can detect between the blood of an ox and the blood of a man; for the microscope and chemical tests are in both cases applied to the dead subject, not the living, and the human blood tested is withdrawn from the living action of the soul, an action that escapes the most powerful microscope, and the most subtile chemical agent. Comparative physiology may gratify the curiosity, and, when not pressed beyond its legitimate bounds, it may even be useful, and help us to a better understanding of our own bodies; but it can never be the basis of a scientific induction, because between man and all animals there is the difference of species. Comparative physiology is, therefore, unlike comparative philology; for, however diverse may be the dialects compared, there is no difference of species among them, and nothing hinders philological inductions from possessing, in the secondary order, a true scientific character. Physiological inductions, resting on the comparative study of different individuals, or different races or families of men, may also be truly scientific; for all these individuals, and all these races or families belong to one and the same species. But the comparative physiology that compares men and animals, gives only analogies, not science.
We do not undervalue science; on the contrary, what we complain of is, that our physiologists do not give us science; they give us facts, theories, or hypotheses. Facts are not science till referred to the principles that explain them, and these principles themselves are not science till integrated in the principles of that high and universal science called theology, and which is really the science of the sciences. The men who pass for savans, and are the hierophants and lawgivers of the age, sin not by their science, but by their want of science. Their ideal of science is too low and grovelling. Science is vastly more than they conceive it; is higher, deeper, broader than they look; and the best of them are, as Newton said of himself, mere boys picking up shells on the shores of the great ocean of truth. They, at best, remain in the vestibule of the temple of science; they have not entered the penetralia and knelt before the altar. We find no fault with Professor Draper's science, where science he has; we only complain of him for attempting to palm off upon us his ignorance for science, and accepting, and laboring to make us accept as science what is really no science. Yet he is not worse than others of his class.