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THE STUDENT'S OUTLINE HISTORICAL MAP OF ENGLAND. By Thos. C. Roney, A. M., Instructor of History in Dennison University. Boston, New York and Chicago: D. C. Heath & Co.

This map, on strong manilla paper, 40 x 48 inches in size, will be found of value to students of English History. It gives the outlines of the present. county divisions, and the divisions into Earldoms and Vassal Kingdoms of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

WASHINGTON'S LETTER TO BENJAMIN HARRISON, Governor of Virginia, in 1784, on the Potomac navigation scheme and the general question of the opening of the West, has just been added by the directors of the Old South Studies in History to their new general series of Old South Leaflets. They have also added Washington's Circular Letter to the Governors of the States, on disbanding the army, in 1783 - a letter which Washington himself felt to be so important that he termed it his "legacy" to the American people, and which discusses the political problems of the time so seriously and thoroughly that it should be read everywhere today along with the Farewell Address. The Farewell Address (No. 4), and the First Inaugural (April 30, 1789), (No. 10), have already appeared in this series of Old South Leaflets, which now numbers sixteen issues, each costing only five cents. The presentation of these important papers in this cheap form is a notable means of popular education in history. All the leaflets are accompanied by useful notes by Mr. Edwin D. Mead, the editor of the series. The notes accompanying the Letter to Governor Harrison, a letter of which far too little is known, show that no man of that time was so sagacious and far-sighted with regard to the future of the great West as Washington. These leaflets should be read by everybody at this Washington Centennial time. They are published by D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, New York and Chicago.

A READER IN BOTANY. Part 1. From Seed to Leaf. Selected and adapted from well-known authors, by Jane H. Newell. Boston: Ginn & Co. Cloth. Pp. 209. Price, 70 cents.

While not intended to be a complete book by itself, it is admirably adapted to awaken and keep in proper condition the enthusiasm of the student of botany. Its compiler has well arranged the chapters for reading in connection with the study of her "Outlines of Botany," recently published by Ginn & Co. Among the authorities quoted are such botanists as Anton Kerner Von Marilann, Julius Von Sachs, Charles Darwin, and Joseph Davier Saintine. Students in grammar or high schools will find this book of much interest and assistance to them in their study of this very attractive subject.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRIEDRICH FROEbel.

Translated and annotated by Emilie Michaelis, Head Mistress of the Croydon Kindergarten and Preparatory School, and H. Keatley Moore, Mus. Bac., B. A., Examiner in Music to the Froebel Society, and Vice Chairman of the Croydon Kindergarten Coinpany. Cloth. Pp. 167. Price, $1.50.

While this is incomplete as a life of Froebel, it will be very gladly received by those kindergarteners who have looked, heretofore so nearly in vain, for something which would give them an insight into the life and habits, and particularly the thoughts and feelings of this man who has done so much for the children of today.

The book is made up of two long autobiographical letters, one to the Duke of Meiningen, and one to Kranse, together with many notes and explanations by the editors, chronological abstract of Froebel's life, and a bibliography of Froebel.

EDUCATION,

DEVOTED TO THE SCIENCE, ART, PHILOSOPHY, AND

LITERATURE OF EDUCATION.

VOL. X.

NOVEMBER, 1889.

No. 3.

HERBERT SPENCER'S RECONCILIATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

MR.

BY J. M. GREENWOOD, KANSAS CITY, MO.

R. HERBERT SPENCER, in the "First Principles of a New System of Philosophy," proposes at the outset to reconcile religion and science. The idea of a reconciliation presupposes a conflict or an antagonism. How well this task is performed by Mr. Spencer is the subject for discussion at this time. If he, in a logical manner, has reconciled religion and science, then the question is settled, and it is a waste of time and energy to reject his conclusions. A valid argument rests upon valid premises, and from these the conclusion is necessitated. Reasoning as such. is the ability to deduce a valid judgment called the conclusion from other judgments which sustain a logical connection with one another. In the case under consideration, if it can be shown that the reconciliation does not reconcile, then Mr. Spencer has failed to establish his proposition, and his argument so far as its validity is concerned, is unsound, although it may contain much useful and valuable information. Upon the other hand, if my objections to his "reconciliation " are not well taken, the fault is mine, either because I do not interpret him correctly, or that my argument is illogical. To understand a philosophical writer- or indeed any author we must occupy the position that he occupies, see humanity in action as he sees it, look upon nature as its phenomena appear to him. To understand, then, the "First Principles," it is evident that we must know in what manner Mr. Spencer was and is

affected by mind and matter, motion, force, sensation and reflection. With him, as with all great minds, the question of paramount importance is, how to account for the origin of matter and mind; how to account for man with all his emotions, affections, and desires, his origin and his destiny. If from the materialistic standpoint Mr. Spencer sees the universe as an endless chain of effects, his explanation will partake somewhat of that infinite series whose beginning and end are wrapped in profound mystery.

To prove his theory he begins his argument with the following statement: "We too often forget that not only is there a soul of goodness in things evil, but generally, also, a soul of truth in things erroneous." By an easy transition, this statement leads out to all doctrines, rumors, reports, occurrences, and so on. Νο difference how grossly at variance a belief may be with the facts, yet there is some verity in it, or that at least which corresponds to an original experience in it. Among all people there is found a wide-spread belief — a religious belief. He does not attempt to explain it away. He will account for it as well as to account for the belief in the reality of science.

In accounting for these two beliefs, tracing them back through a long series of ages, he eventually finds that element that they have in common, and this once accomplished the reconciliation. is deduced as a necessary corollary. Now, religious ideas are widespread, and have, therefore, existed for a long time. But the presumption that any current belief is not wholly false gains in strength in proportion to the number of adherents it has. Applying this doctrine to beliefs of whatsoever nature, it is found to be true, though the reader is reminded that the voice of the majority is not always the voice of God; yet majorities have not always been entirely wrong. This is not a new doctrine. The Eclectics held it, and so firmly has it become established in the minds of men that it is recognized very generally among all liberal minded persons whether applied to doctrines, science, law, medicine, or even to the ordinary affairs of life. When condensed it may be formulated as follows: That there is some sort of a foundation for every belief.

Cousin expressed this thought in another form, when he averred that every system of philosophy contained some truth. Mr. Spencer recognizes the fact that there is no definite way whereby we can find out just how much of a popular and wide-spread belief

is true or even how much of it is false. As an argument, however, he shows how beliefs in rulers have changed from the earliest times when men were represented as gods and demigods- and also to the modifications that have occurred in the minds of men concerning the power that the rulers exercised over the lives and property of their subjects. Once it was common to enact laws regulating the modes of dress and the manner of living, but such questions have long since passed beyond legal control. In those days the State furnished the individual with his religion and made him practice it. But there has been a gradual emancipation going on till the ultimate limit would seem to be the largest liberty of the individual consistent with the welfare of the whole. In all the past systems he finds a kernel of truth in each one. Turning to the present, and eliminating all that is not common to the whole, the average amount of truth on any given belief is obtained, but the "remaining constituent is an abstract expression which holds true throughout its divergent modifications."

Applying this to all our investigations he thinks we shall come to juster and more reasonable conclusions, and that we shall ever be ready to hold less positive convictions of our own and give more deference to the opinion of others.

As to religion and science, he asserts that there is a conflict, that it has been raging for centuries. Both are right and both are wrong; as the two knights who fought about the color of the shield, neither of whom had looked at both its sides. Religious ideas, he grants, of some sort are universal, and equally so are the ideas of science and science, in its higher form, is only a development of common knowledge.

Mr. Spencer, after a preliminary discussion, comes to the subject of religious ideas. Trying to account for them, two suppositions are made: first, that the feelings which correspond to religious ideas resulted along with all other human faculties from special creation; the other by a process of evolution. This is the startingpoint. It is fundamental, radical. Mr. Spencer does not hesitate to employ the evolution process. "Creeds," he says, "are not priestly inventions." He thinks a candid analysis of the facts controverts this position. Owing to the universality of religious ideas, "their source is deep-seated," not artificial, as some would have people believe. Should it be asserted that they are the product of a religious sentiment, the difficulty is only removed

one step - not surmounted. Whence comes the religious sentiment? He recognizes this fact and meets it manfully-"they must be derived out of human experience, slowly accumulated and organized." This, then, is his system, and upon it he accounts for the religious sentiment in the human race. Neither ignoring religion or science, he sets out to find the harmony between them. He must look for harmony in the most abstract principle in both of them. They coalesce in the highest abstract conception. "Assuming then," says he, "that since these two great realities— religion and science are constituents of the same mind, and respond to different aspects of the same universe, there must be a fundamental harmony between them; we see good reasons to conclude that the most abstract truth contained in religion and the most abstract truth contained in science must be the one in which the two coalesce. The largest fact to be found within our mental range must be the one of which we are in search. Uniting these positive and negative poles of human thought it must be the ultimate fact in our intelligence."

The next step he takes in establishing his reconciliation is, to prove that nearly all our conceptions are symbolical, not real. By way of argument he introduces the earth as a conception, and sets out to show that the notion we have of it is symbolical and not real. Here is a fatal mistake at the outset. He fails to distinguish between a complete and an incomplete conception. Because we are unable to grasp all the attributes of an individual object of thought it by no means follows that the conception is symbolic. Again he says: "We must predicate nothing of object too great or too multitudinous to be mentally represented; or, we must make our predications by the help of extremely inadequate representations of such objects-mere symbols of them." Is it true that our conceptions are limited to objects that can be represented in the imagination? Conflicting attributes cannot be thought as adhering in the same object at the same time, yet in the different types of men I know these attributes may be found, but in the mind the general concept "man" is as a reality, although the mind is mentally impotent to figure the universal concept in the imagination, and so of other universal concepts. The question is shifted, perhaps unintentionally, to this: An objective reality which corresponds to the general concept. Very truthfully he says: "To every civilized child the problem of the universe

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