It is quite proper for Dr. Draper to appear as a polemic in science, if he will.  It is not advocacy per se of which we complain; it is advocacy with a squint, advocacy round a corner.  If he wishes to prove the creative efficacy of “Situations,” let him do so; but let him not in doing so seem to be offering an impartial exposition of Human Physiology.  If he wishes to prove that physical science is the only rational thing in the world, he may try; but let him not assume to be writing a history of intellectual development.  If he would convince us that history has epochs corresponding to those of individual life, we will listen; but we shall listen with impatience, if it appear after all that he is merely seeking, under cover of this proposition, to further a low materialistic dogma, and convince us of “man’s insignificance in the universe.”

We are open to all reasonings.  Any decent man, who has honorably gone through with his Pythagorean lustrum of silence and thought, shall, by our voice, have his turn on the world’s tribune; and if he be honest, he shall lose nothing by it.  But we hate indirections.  We hate the pretension implied in assuming to be an authoritative expounder, when one is only an advocate.  And, still further, we shall always resist any man’s attempt to make his facts go for a great deal more than they are worth.  Let him call his ten ten, and it shall pass for ten; but if he insist on calling it a thousand, we shall not acquiesce.  The science of Physiology is just out of its babyhood.  Of the nervous system in particular—­of its physiology and pathology alike—­our knowledge is extremely immature.  We are just beginning, indeed, to know anything scientifically on that subject.  The attempt in behalf of that little to banish spiritual philosophy out of the world, and to silence forever the voice of Human Consciousness, is a piece of pretension on behalf of which we decline to strain our hospitality.

Our notice of this work would, however, be both incomplete and unjust, did we forbear to say, that, in its avowed idea, the author has got hold of a genuine analogy.  Not that we approve the details of his scheme; the details, we verily believe, are as nearly all wrong as an able and studious man could make them.  But the general idea of a correspondence between individual and social life, of an organic existence in civilizations and a consequent subjection to the law of organisms, is a rich mine, and one that will sooner or later be worked to profit.  And the definite, emphatic announcement of it in Dr. Draper’s work, however awkwardly done, suffices to make the work one of grave importance.