Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/480

 NEW BOOKS. 467 They are now published in two volumes, each furnished with a " General Introduction," and the first (" Expository ") volume containing an addi- tional ('or not previously noticed) part on "Certitude, Providence and Prayer 5 ' (pp. 205-252). The introduction to vol. i. (pp. 1-26) deals with the question "What an American Philosophy should be" ; the introduc- tion to vol. ii. reviews historically, " Realism : its place in the various Philosophies ". " The time has come," the author thinks, " for America to declare her independence in philosophy." American philosophy is to be " a Realism, opposed to Idealism on the one hand and Agnosticism on the other". The historical review of the philosophies is intended to show " that there is an avowed or latent Realism running through nearly all of them". Accordingly the "final philosophy" will be a "discriminate Realism " in which " all that is established in the previous philosophies will be embraced ". Naturae Veritas. By GEORGE M. MINCHIN, M.A., Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill. London and New York : Macmillan & Co., 1887. Pp. 67. This is a " scientific romance " of the type made familiar by Micromegas. The first part (" Stellar Visits ") is in prose, the second (" The Revelation from Aldebaran ") is poetical. Its idea, which is worked out with much ingenuity, is that in other stellar systems the distribution of the various energies of the universe may be quite different from their distribution in the solar system, and that beings with other organs than ours may know energy under other forms. The effect of this knowledge might well be that, instead of the principle of " the dissipation of energy," a principle of " the circulation of energy " should be seen to hold good ; heat being, per- haps, to those who can observe more of the processes of nature, an emi- nently transformable kind of energy. " In none of the Stellar Systems which I visited," the narrator says, " could I find any confirmation of my belief in the principle of the Dissipation of Energy, either in the opinions of the various Beings with whom I conversed, or in the facts which they related to me as within the domain of their own knowledge. These facts would of themselves suffice to convince me that the transformation of all forms of Energy into Heat is not final ; and that, although Men, with their limited field of experience and scanty modes of perception, are unable to trace the process, the principle which really holds throughout the Universe is that of the Circulation, or, as the Al Fardian expressed it, the Resurrection, of Energy ; but the authoritative Revelation of the Aldebaran Spirit places the matter beyond doubt. What has gone before has shown me the danger of making a sweeping generalisation for this vast Universe from the scanty facts which we are able to gather in the Solar System. The conclusion is of too tremendous a magnitude to be at all justified by the existing state of our knowledge, or any that we are ever 'likely to attain." The poetical " Revelation from Aldebaran " first throws the inquirer into despair by showing him that if, as he supposes, the frame of the material universe is to be destroyed, his hope that mind will still endure is a vain imagination ; then refutes his opinion, founded on the limited experience of an inhabitant of the solar system, that the universe is destined to become a lifeless mass of uniform temperature ; and finally expounds to him the possibilities there are of indefinite progress of mind in the conscious beings of the universe, although the individual consciousness may disappear with the organism, and although, for the punishment of " the crooked will " that rejects " the higher way," there is " regression ever hovering in the rear ". The Theories of Anarchy and of Law. A Midnight Debate. By H. B. BREWSTER. London : Williams and Norgate, 1887. Pp. xii., 152.