On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (4)
-
472 THE LE^ADEB. OSjAfifttBA^
-
^nrlfDiin.
-
We should do our utmost to encourage the...
-
COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. By G. H. Le...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
A Hatch Of New Books. Tnis Crowded State...
wm-Tr of mssionate devotion on Sazlittfs part , and hm son undertakes in 1 ° SlFnnfoc oSeci its errors of name and of date . The same publishers ^ sent ™^ an S book of travels , profusely illustrated with Soodcuts -2 ^^'^ JBesidence ln Siam , which introduces us to manners and Soms not yet hacknied by the « free-pencillers . '' Mr . Neale > is ^ a pSant companion- and although we have not travelled over all . the ¦ Sound with & , it has been frpm ho lack of interest , but from lack of time We shall call upon his volume for extracts from time to tmie , and now " dismiss it with our recommendation . Also from the same . establishment comes this Illustrated London Cookery Book , a goodly volume ^ containing fifteen hundred receipts , addressed to families blessed with an intelligent cook and a liberal purse . As reviewers we are supposed to understand " carving , " having so many occasions for " cutting up ; but of the great art of cookery we must humbly declare our profound ignoranceand therefore decline to give our opinion on this book .
, Beales Laws of Health in relation to Mind and Body ( 8 yo , Churchill ) , contains , in the shape of letters from a practitioner to his patient , some excellent advice , and some fourth-rate metaphysical writing . Although , not by any means comparable to Andrew Combe's admiraole books ^ on this subjects Mr . Beale ' s volume maybe commended as an intelligible exposition of certain general principles useful to bear in mind . The Introductory Lectures delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology , and published under the title of Records of the School of Mines ( Longman and Co . ) , are somewhat more interesting than inaugural lectures are ai > t to be : notably that of Professor Forbes on the Relations of Natural
History to Geology , which has less of commonplace than the others . W e noticed these lectures at the time , and now record their publication . The Life of Boger Williams , by Romeo Elton , D . D . ( 12 mo , A . Cockshaw ) , has peculiar interest to those who view in its true philosophic light the chivalrous element of that spiritual Quixotism named " Missionary fervor ; " and from it the reader may turn to another psychological curiosity set forth in "Wild ' s Irish Popular Superstitions ( 12 mo , Orr and Go . ) , written in a rapid touch-and-go style . Railway Literature , as it is inappropriately called , entices us with Cunynghame's lively Glimpse at the Great Western Republic ( Bentley ' s shilling- series ) , with Fanny Lewald ' s Italian Sketch-Book , translated
from the German for Simms and M'Intyre ' s Book-case ; with Captain Mayne Reid ' s rattling and vivacious romance , The Seal ? Hunters ( Parlour Library ); with Mary Howitt ' s translation of A . Stifter ' s Pictures of Life ( Parlour Library ); and with an original novel by Miss Maillard , Zingra , the Gipsy ( Railway'Library ) . .
472 The Le^Adeb. Osjafifttba^
472 THE LE ^ ADEB . OSjAfifttBA ^
^Nrlfdiin.
^ nrlfDiin .
We Should Do Our Utmost To Encourage The...
We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goethe .
Comte's Positive Philosophy. By G. H. Le...
COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY . By G . H . Lewes . Part VII . —General Considerations on Astronomy . It is difficult not to talk poetry when talking of the stars ; but we must here do our utmost to repress that tendency , and to keep ourselves at the scientific point of view . That man should know anything of the stars would be marvellous , if all knowledge were not a marvel . The history of his knowledge , the gradual growth of his conceptions on this subject of the stars would be the history of the human mind . In Astronomy , from its very simplicity , we see with greater distinctness the-procession of thoughts , from the time when the course of the stars seemed prophetic of human destiniesand their wayward ever-varying configurations dragged with them
, the strange vicissitudes of life , to the time when positive science has ascertained the main laws of the heavenly mechanism . In it maybe seen amusingly illustrated the theological tendency of interpreting all phenomena according to human analogies , the metaphysical tendency of arguing instead of observing—of substituting some logical deduction for the plain observation of a fact ; and finally , the positive tendency of limiting inquiry to accessible relations , and rejecting as idle all speculation which transcends
our means . Comte has not only devoted some four hundred pages o ^ his second volume to an exposition of the main points necessary to be understood in a philosophic survey of Astronomy , he has also devoted a separate work to the subject in his Treatise of Popular Astronomy , justly considering this science as one eminently calculated to render familiar his views of positive method . In the remarks which are now to follow , Comte himself must be understood as speaking ; the sentences arc translations , or analyses , of what may be found in his work : — And first , as to the possible extent of our sidereal knowledge .
Sight is the only one of our s 6 nses through which we can acquire a knowledge of celestial objects . Hence , their only qualities that can become known to us are their forms , their distances , their magnitudes , and their movements ; and Astronomy , therefore , may properly be defined thus : — It has for its object the discovery of the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented to us by the heavenly bodies . It is , however , necessary to add , that in reality , the phenomena of all the heavenly bodies are not within the reach of scientific investigation .
Those philosophical minds who arc strangers to the profound study of Astronomy , and even astronomers themselves , have not yet sufficiently distinguished , in the ensemble of our celestial investigations , between the solar point of view , as I may call it , and that which truly deserves the name of universal . This distinction , however , appears to me indispensable to mark precisely the line of separation between that part of the science
kind to become in the course of timey we should never be able to arrive at the true conception of the ensemble of the stars . The difference is at this moment , very striking indeed ; for * with a solar astronom y in the high degree of perfection acquired during the two last centuries , we do not even yet possess , in sidereal astronomy , the first and simplest element of positive inquiry , —the determination ' of the distances of the stars . Doubtless , we have reason for presuming ( as I shall afterwards explain ) that those distances will yet be determined , at least , within certain limits , in the case of
which may- b . e brought to a state completely perfect , and the other , which without indeed being purely conjectural , must always remain in the staee of infancy , at least , when contrasted with the first . The solar system of which we form a part , evidently offers a subject of stud yl whose boundaries are well marked ; it is susceptible of a thorough examination , and capable of leading us to the most satisfactory conclusions . Biit the idea of what we call the universe is , on the contrary , necessarily indefinite , so that , however extensive we would suppose our well-grounded knowledge of this
several stars ; and that , consequently , we shall know divers other important elements , which theory is quite prepared to deduce from this fundamental given quantity , such as their masses , & c . But the important distinction made above will by no means be affected thereby . In every branch of our researches , and in all their chief aspects , there exists a constant and necessary harmony between the extent of our intellectual wants , that truly are such , and the real compass , present or future , of our knowledge . This harmony , which I shall specially point out in all classes of phenomena , is neither the result nor the sign of a final cause , as our common-place philosophers try to believe . It simply arises from this evident necessity : —on the one hand we have only need of
knowing what can act upon and affect us , more or less directly ; and on the other , it follows , from the very fact of there being such influencing agencies in operation , that we are thereby sooner or later supplied with a sure means of knowledge . This relation is made manifest in a remarkable manner in the case before us . The most complete study possible of the laws of the solar system , of which we form a part , is of high interest to us , and we have succeeded in giving it an admirable precision . On the contrary if an exact idea of the universe is necessarily interdicted to us , it is plain
that this is of no real importance , except to our insatiable curiosity . The daily application of astronomy shows that the phenomena occurring within each solar system , being those which can alone affect its inhabitants , are essentially independent of the more general phenomena connected with the mutual action of the suns , almost like our meteorbgical phenomena in their relation to the planetary phenomena . Our tables of celestial events , prepared long beforehand , on the principle of taking no account of any other World in the universe , save our own , have hitherto rigorously tallied
with direct observations , however minute the precision we introduce into them . This independence , so palpable , is completel y explained by the immense disproportion which we are certain exists between the mutual distances of the suns , and the small intervals between our planets . If , as is highly probable , the planets provided with atmospheres , as Mercury , Venus , Jupiter , & c , are really inhabited , we may regard their inhabitants as in some shape our fellow citizens , seeing that from this sort of common country there would necessarily result a certain community of thoughts , and even of interests , while the inhabitants of the other solar systems must
be entire aliens to us . It is therefore necessary to separate more profoundly than has hitherto been customary , the solar from the universal point of view , —the idea of the world from that of the universe ; the first is the highest which we have been able actually to reach , and it is , besides , the only one in which we are truly interested . Hence , without renouncing all hope of obtaining some knowledge ot the stars , it is necessary to conceive positive astronomy as consisting essentially in the geometrical and mechanical study of the small number of heavenly bodies which compose the world of which we form a part . It is only within these limits that astronomy , from its perfection , merits the superior
rank which it now holds among the sciences . And here Comte calls attention to a very important philosop hical law , never distinctly recognised before his enunciation of it—viz .: That m P " portion as the phenomena to be studied become more complex , they are , jro ^ their nature , susceptible of more extended and more varied means of exp oration . . •„?«
In other words , the complexity of the phenomena imply a greater van ^ y of sources through which they can be investigated . If man had a s the less , the phenomena now perceived by that sense would be wa B to him ; if he had a sense the more , he would perceive more P" ^ ? ^ There is not , however , an exact comp ensation between the i ncrease o ^ ficulty and the increase of our resources , so that , notwithstanding harmony , the sciences which refer to , tho most complex P . " ? cncytinuo no less necessarily the most imperfect , in accordance with * ° Agtr ^ clopicdical scale established at the commencement of Comte ' s work . ^ . ^ nomical phenomena , then , being the simplest , ought to b e th ose to
the irfeans of exploration are the most limited . t pr 0-Our art of observing is , in general , composed of three dlfte *? t \ % cesses : 1 st , Observation , properly so called—that is to say , the < n ^ aminationof the phenomenon , just as it naturally presents itself ; ^ > ^ rime % t—t \ v * . t is to say , the contemplation of . the phenomena ,. mor . ¦ modified by circumstances artificially created by us , with the expr i e poBo of a more perfect exploration ; 3 rd , Contpari $ on ± -th * t w to y >
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), May 15, 1852, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15051852/page/20/
-