Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/47

Rh philosophy, implies ex vi termini, the act of causing to exist," the answer to give is that the term "creation" is not used in "all modern philosophy," and that the idea of creation has a very small place indeed in modern philosophy. Professor Eucken, of Jena, in a useful little hand-book, which has been translated by a professor at Andover and furnished with an introduction by the ex-President of Yale, has catalogued and commented on "The Concepts of Modern Philosophy." Mr. Curtis will search the list in vain for any mention of the concept of "creation"; and it is a perfectly safe statement to make that the idea in question is not an element of any importance in contemporary philosophical thought.

Mr. Curtis says many odd things without being in the least aware of it. He describes lexicographers as "learned persons, part of whose business it is to exhibit the thought that is represented by a word, . . . according to the exact correspondence between the word and the idea which it conveys in its primary and philosophical usage." A very little reflection, aided by a small amount of inquiry, would have sufficed to satisfy him that the primary sense of a word and its philosophical sense are seldom, if ever, the same. He tells us that, according to his famous postulate, "the whole void which consists in mere nothingness" is "under the absolute sway" of the Creator. Could more nonsensical language possibly be put together? Imagine the Creator swaying "nothingness"! How much power does it take to do it? What effect has it upon "nothingness" to be "swayed"? Has it all been "swayed" yet, or is some of it still unswayed? These questions are all quite pertinent and quite absurd; and, when a question is at once pertinent and absurd, it is evident that something is wrong with the matter to which the question relates. Mr. Curtis would not believe Mr. Spencer when the latter told him that the idea of creation was unthinkable; he thought he knew better, and now we find his supposed superior knowledge leading him to represent the Almighty as swaying nothing. Mr. Spencer knew it would come to that; and, should he find time to look at Mr. Curtis's book, he will have no such shocks of surprise as Mr. Curtis had in reading his. Our author further tells us that "the theologian is not the only person who has occasion to examine the doctrine of evolution; it must be examined by the statesman as well." By all means! Let theologians, statesmen, and lawyers all examine it, and whosoever will let him examine it; only let this caution be whispered into each one's ear, that it requires a little preparation to examine it to any good purpose. Our author is not the only prominent lawyer who has failed to make much of it. He will find a sympathizer in Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, who told the Nineteenth Century Club, not so long ago, that, down in Wall Street, the whole phraseology of evolution would be quite unintelligible. We don't doubt it; a comprehensive system of philosophy, founded on a very wide range of induction, is apt to be