A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. BY GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 1887 . Copyright, 1887. By GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS. TO LEWIS A. SAYRE, M. D., WHOSE PROFESSIONAL EMINENCE IS RECOGNIZED IN BOTH HEMISPHERES, WHOSE SKILL AS A SURGEON SUFFERING HUMANITY GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES, TO WHOSE ANATOMICAL LEARNING THE AUTHOR IS LARGELY INDEBTED, AND OF WHOSE FRIENDSHIP HE IS PROUD, This Book IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED ....

Perhaps it is expected of a writer who steps out of the sphere of his ordinary pursuits, and deals with such a subject as that which is treated in this work, that he will account for his so doing. It is not necessary for me to say that no class of men can have a monopoly in any subject. But I am quite willing to take my readers into my confidence so far as to state how I came to write this book. Most men, who have a special pursuit, find the necessity for recreation of some kind. Some take it in

Nature and importance of the subject—Is there a relation of Creator and creature between God and man?—Rules of rational belief—Is natural theology a progressive science? Man finds himself in the universe a conscious and thinking being. He has to account to himself for his own existence. He is impelled to this by an irresistible propensity, which is constantly leading him to look both inward and outward for an answer to the questions: What am I? How came I to be? What is the limit of my existence

The Platonic Kosmos compared with the Darwinian theory of evolution. It is my purpose in this chapter to draw a parallel between the theory of the origin of different animals propounded in the "Timæus" of Plato and that of Mr. Darwin. The analogy between them has been briefly hinted by Mr. Grote, but he has not followed it out in detail, as it was no part of his object to make minute comparisons between any of the speculations of Plato and those of modern philosophers. The great English scholar

The Darwinian pedigree of man—The evolution of organisms out of other organisms, according to the theory of Darwin. It is doubtless an interesting speculation to go back in imagination to a period to be counted by any number of millions of years, or covered by an immeasurable lapse of time, and to conceive of slowly-moving causes by which the present or the past inhabitants of this globe became developed out of some primordial type, through successive generations, resulting in different species,

The doctrine of evolution according to Herbert Spencer. Passing from Mr. Darwin as the representative of that class of naturalists who have undertaken to assign the pedigree of man by tracing the stages of his development back to the lowest and crudest form of animal life, I now come to a philosopher whose speculations carry the doctrine of evolution through every field of inquiry, and who, finding, as he supposes, evidence of its operation throughout all the other realms of the physical and the

The doctrine of evolution according to Herbert Spencer further considered. In the last preceding chapter, I have examined Mr. Spencer's chief objection to the doctrine of special creations when considered in its general aspects. I now advance to the general aspects of the evolution hypothesis as applied by this philosopher to the animal kingdom. I have already suggested the appropriate answer to the claim that the derivation of the evolution hypothesis is favorable because it has originated "amo

The doctrine of evolution, according to Herbert Spencer, further considered. In the last two preceding chapters I have examined what Mr. Spencer regards as the direct supports of the doctrine of evolution. I have now to consider the different orders of facts which, as he claims, yield to it indirect support. These are the facts derived from classification, from embryology, from morphology, and from distribution. An explanation is here needful of the sense in which he uses these respective terms,

Mr. Spencer's agnosticism—His theory of the origin of religious beliefs—The mode in which mankind are to lose the consciousness of a personal God. In a former chapter I had occasion to advert to one of Mr. Spencer's favorite dogmas, namely, the impossibility of an intellectual conception of creation, which he thinks is made apparent by the statement that one term of the relation, the thing created, is something, and the other term of the relation, that out of which the thing was created, is noth

"The hypothesis of vortices is pressed with many difficulties. That every planet by a radius drawn to the sun may describe areas proportional to the times of description, the periodic times of the several parts of the vortices should observe the duplicate proportion of their distances from the sun; but that the periodic times of the planets may obtain the sesquiplicate proportion of their distances from the sun, the periodic times of the parts of the vortex ought to be in the sesquiplicate propo

Note. —It will readily occur to the reader that Sophereus might most pertinently have asked: Whence did the primal cell originate? It is conceived of as the ultimate unit of organizable matter; invisible to the naked eye, perhaps incapable of being reached by the microscope, but consisting of an infinitesimally small portion of matter, more or less organized in itself, and possessing a capacity to unite with itself other minute particles of matter, and so to form larger aggregates of molecules.

"Species," "races," and "varieties"—Sexual division—Causation. The two friendly disputants have again met. Sophereus begins their further colloquy, in an effort to reach a common understanding of certain terms, so that they may not be speaking of different things. Sophereus. I have more than once referred to the fact that Nature does not permit crosses between the true species of animals, in breeding, and that we have no reason to suppose it ever did. This is a very important fact to be consider

Origin of the human mind—Mr. Spencer's theory of the composition of mind—His system of morality. According to their appointment, our two disputants have met to discuss the origin of mind. Sophereus. Will you begin this conference by stating the evolution theory of the origin of the human mind? Kosmicos. Most willingly. I have thus far spoken of the hypothesis of evolution as affording an explanation of the origin of distinct animals, regarded simply as living organisms, differentiated from each

Mr. Spencer's philosophy as a whole—His psychology, and his system of ethics—The sacred origin of moral injunctions, and the secularization of morals. A certain honesty and directness of mind prevent Sophereus from being bewildered by the Spencerian philosophy. Before his next meeting with the scientist, he has reviewed the main features of this philosophy as developed in Mr. Spencer's published works; and he has taken notice of the warning which Mr. Spencer has given to his readers in the prefa

Sophereus discourses on the Nature and Origin of the Human Mind. Sophereus , in fulfillment of his intention expressed at their last meeting, reads to the scientist the following DISCOURSE ON THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN MIND. I regard the mind as an organism, capable of anatomical examination, as the body is, but of course by very different means. In the anatomical examination of an animal organism we use our eye-sight to acquire a knowledge of its component parts, its organs, and its str

OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN THIS WORK. [The following definitions marked with an asterisk are borrowed from the glossary annexed to Darwin's "Origin of Species." The remainder of the definitions are taken from Webster's Dictionary.] *Aberrant. Forms or groups of animals or plants which deviate in important characters from their nearest allies, so as not to be easily included in the same group with them, are said to be aberrant. *Abnormal. Contrary to the general rule. *Aborted. An