The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-05-11

true OF the severe but limited discipline
that is impaired by the study of mathe-
MATES and physics. 1t is well to be dis
tinctly understood. The reference Just
made was not so much to the expert
mental, as to the mathematical sciences,
but is applicable to considerable extent
to all branches of purely abstract, as well
as of merely physical Investigation
There is no intention either of under
valuing the strictly mathematical studies.
Sir William Hamilton and some other
great men have unduly deprecated math-
emat'cs. A famous teacher OF philosophy
once remarked to the scribbler of these
jottings that Sir William would have
been the better himself for a thorough
training in the higher algebra; and add
ed that there were mental exercises which
could not be successfully developed in
any other way. The fact is that Hamil-
ton decried this branch of study very
much as johnson decried instrumental
music; because he had no taste for it,
and knew little or nothing about it. The
truth, as so constantly, lies midway be-
tween the two extremes. Bacon admits
that mathematics is good school for the
attentive faculties. VOLTA toutI He al
lows indeed that mathematics tends to
make man subtle; but with Bacon
the word subtle is commonly if not al
ways used in bad sense. The subtle
man was not the man who had "made
ali knowledge his province" The sub
tlest of men in Bacons sense and in
Bacon's judgment, it may be shrewdly
surmised, was Sir Edward Coke. If this
be so, Bacon hardly went far enough in
his admissions Yet when the amplest
admissions have been made, it remains
true that the exact sciences afford val
liable, and at the same time restricted
and somewhat hazardous discipline to the
mind. The peril grows out of the mar
rowness and severity of the process. An
exclusive devotion to these rigid methods
units the mental powers for other and
higher forms of activity. The boosted
science" of our time is much of it visi-
bly, and deplorably "to seek" Gas Milton
phrases it, in several of the fundamental
elements of sound education. The in
ability of such men as Spencer to see that
a physical hypothesis purporting to show
how given thing has come about in no
degree meets the imperative craving of
the rational nature to know aOAy it has
come about, is due to an intellectual no
less than to moral flaw. So the failure
OF Iarwin and Tyndall, and the rest of
them, to get beyond the mole-like blind
ness of old Lucretius in the matter of
final causes, is due to kindred effect of
mental vision. They can see that tie
swallow flies with his wings; but not
that the swallows wings were meant for
him to fly with. Comics total rejection
of psychology from his scheme of the
sciences, is to be explained in the same
way. So is the faulty of the Mills,
father and son, and those who think with
them, in relation to the primitive iudg-
ments. We are sometimes tempted to
suspect them of being disingenuous. We
feel sure that Hume was to a certain ex-
tent disingenuous. How else can we &C
count for it that sane and clever man
should try to proUe that all proof is ne
cessarily impossible? If not conscious
sophistry, this is certainly sort of men
tai alteration. That is the only reason
able explanation also of the complacent
equanimity with which our empirical
skeptics tell US that they have consulted
the telescope, and the microscope, and
the spectroscope, and that so far as APP
pears there is nothing in the world but
matter. President Porter makes the en-
couraging statement that when his young
men get up into the higher classes they
generally pass from under the influence
of the sciolists of the day.