Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 62:245 (Jan 1905)
Article: Notes On British Theology And Philosophy
Author: James Lindsay

BSac 62:245 (Jan 1905) p. 174

Notes On British Theology And Philosophy

James Lindsay

Kilmarnock, Scotland

A work of more than ordinary range and merit is “History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century,” by John Theodore Merz.3 Indeed, in its range and amplitude it may be said to be quite extraordinary. For the range and amplitude of European thought in the nineteenth century were so vast, and the complexity of its intellectual activities was so great, that large powers will be required of him who would be historian of its thought, in the widest sense of that term. But Dr. Merz has, so far, shown himself possessed of such powers, and in these two volumes has attained a high and rare degree of success in his elaborate undertaking. For these volumes, concerned as they are with the scientific thought of the nineteenth century, are but the first part of the entire work, the second part of which will be awaited with interest as continuing the discussion within more strictly philosophical territories. I say “more strictly,” because even these two volumes

1903.

BSac 62:245 (Jan 1905) p. 175

contain many points of discussion relative to philosophers like Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Herbart, Locke, Lotze, Spencer, and others, but the next part of the work will be of more purely philosophical character.

In these volumes, then, it must be said, we find the most comprehensive and illuminating account of the historic processes of nineteenth-century science that has yet been given us, and it is given us in so clear, intelligible, and sympathetic a style as to make us feel that the author’s work has been excellently done even in its more detailed aspects. Would that our scientific specialists shared more largely in this comprehensiveness of outlook! In the first volume, the author first of all traces the growth of the scientific spirit in the great nations of Western Europe. The account of the rise of German research is particularly interesting and useful, as is also the notice of Britain’s contribution to germinal ideas in Science. Chapters on the Astronomical and the Atomic views of Nature follow, and in these the work of Newton and Dalton, respectively, receives careful and appreciative attention. The Atomic view is, in the view of Dr. Merz, “still in a somewhat unstable condition” (vol. 1. p. 386).

Passing from these astronomical and chemical discussions at the close of the first volume, we turn to the second installment of this important work. This new volume presents a wide array of subjects and points of view. We have the kinetic or mechanical view of Nature, the physical view, the morphological view, the genetic view, the vitalistic vi...