The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-11-20
Fashionable Philosophy.


The Positive Philosophy has at length be-
come Americanized. 1t has received the
learned recognition OF Harvard, where Pro-
fessor James Fiske will ''sum up the labors
'of Comte, Mill, Spencer, and all the mod
s'ern philosophers and scientists" Boston,
of course, is in transports, and the New
York World, mindful of past editorial Ser
vices, lauds the Professor and publishes his
inaugural with a great flourish of trumpets.
Henceforth let it be known that the meta
physicians, the theologians and the trans
cendentalists have had their day. Emerson,
the Massachusetts Plato, may follow Tho
reau's example, and hide. himself in the
woods. The party Of moral ideas who have
controlled "the Hub must be disbanded.
The creeds of yore must be consigned to the
museums OF archaeology. The doctrinal and
ethical conclusions which have heretofore
ruled American thought and lffe must sub
nit to revisal, and even to denial until they
shall be scientifically proved. A principle
must be esteemed untrue until it shall be
demonstrated by precisely the same methods
as those which prevail in geometry.
We have read with good deal OF interest
the elaborate and ingenious lecture of the
new Professor. We admire the dexterity
with whicMideas are tossed to and fro as
deity as juggler's balls, the free familiar
ity with his subject displayed by. the lee
turer, and especially the fluent English in
which he reproduces the vague and wordy
distractions of Mr. Herbert Spencer. This
latter thinker rather than Comte, would
appear To be the master of the new CAM
bridge school. Yet after all, the lecture is
not a satisfactory one to mind desirous oil
some firm conclusion to rest upon; it ap-
plies logic to the convictions of the reason
and the intuitions OF the soul; it tmusts the
scalpel of critical analysis into the living Or
ganism, and hence, while the process goes
on, the subtle spirit escapes.
Perhaps we ought not to object in the
Inauguration Of q new system, to the demo-
lition OF the old. A workman must take
down one structure before he Can rear an
other in its place. But he may dig away
the soil to such an extent as to leave no
foundation for the proposed edifce. And
this is what Professor Fiske has done. He
not only represents God and Nature as un-
movable, but, with the skill OF Greek
sophist, makes either contradictory to itself
We have never before seen such specimen
ofintellectual legerdemain- "We are obliged
to admit, says the Professor, that the mole
cules of matter are separate and infinitely
divisible, yet these facts are attended with
insuperable difficulties. Whichever horn Of
the dilemma we take we are sure to be gored
by it. Or il we turn from the constitution OF
matter to- the origin OF ii, we are in greater
perplexiy. The universe cannot be self
existing as the Atheist afirms. nor self-cre-
ated as the Pantheist affirms, nor created
by an external agency as the Theist afirms
1t must have had q cause and beginning,
yet both cause and beginning are inconceiv-
able. AS to the great First Cause, this is at
once necessity and network OF contra
dictions- AS to the existence Of objects, we
only know this, so for as they are related to
ourselves, and yet we do not know that
their nature corresponds with their effects
upon US in any particular W hatever. Thus
God and the universe are forever unknowa-
ble" We only know our own states OF con-
sciousness, and the business OF the Positive
Philosopher is simply to classify these states.
Such is the system Of negation and despair
to which the honor of chair has beea as
signed by Harvard College.
If we may compare great things with
small, the conclusion to which the sharp
dialectitisn comes reminds us of the oracular
opinion of our old friend, Jack Bunsby:-
"Whereby, why not, If 80, what odds
Can any man say otherwisef No. Awast,
then!" But if the teaching they receive
were logically carried out by the students,
the result might not be at all amusing. Iney
might argue: We know nothing as 1t is;
our professor by his own confession, is as
unfortunate as ourselves. All OF Us are sub
lect to the illusions of the senses or what
advantage is it for US to classify these fugi-
tive, false impressions which have received
the sounding name OF the Positive Philoso-
phy? Why study system whose principle
abrogates all knowledgef Or, if this sys-
TEN be true, why study anythingr Perhaps
blank ignorance may be no worse than uni
yersal skepticism.
AT THE last session Of the State Legisla-
lure, tax amounting to too thousand dol
lars was authorized to be levied upon the
citizens OF Wadmalaw and Johns Islands
for the purpose OF rebuilding the bridge
,fross Church Creek. The old bridge which