Victorian Literature: Sixty Years of Books and BookmenShorter, Clement King
History
Victorian Literature: Sixty Years of Books and Bookmen
Shorter, Clement King
English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
To have placed Psychology and Ethics on a scientific basis in harmony
with the discoveries of the century is a truly great achievement. Many
years have now passed away since Herbert Spencer claimed the whole
domain of knowledge as his own, and undertook to revise, in accordance
with the latest lights, the whole sphere of philosophy. What must have
seemed intolerable presumption in 1860 became in 1896 a completed task.
In universality of knowledge he rivals Aristotle and Bacon at a time
when the sphere of learning is immensely larger than in their epochs. It
is not within the province of this survey of literature to go through
the twelve large volumes of his works in detail. We would rather point
out that, to the unphilosophical reader, who would willingly know
something of Spencer's literary powers, the "Study of Sociology," which
he wrote for the "International Scientific Series," and the treatise on
"Education" are books which all who read must enjoy.
To him, with Mill, belongs the glory of restoring to Great Britain the
old supremacy in philosophy given to her by Bacon, continued by Locke,
Hume, and Berkeley, but temporarily interrupted by Kant and Hegel.
Another writer who has attempted to combine psychology with physiology
is =Alexander Bain (1818- )=, who was for many years Professor of
Logic in the University of Aberdeen, and twice Lord Rector. Bain
assisted Mill in the preparation of his "Logic," and has himself written
a treatise on that science, also lengthy works on "The Senses and the
Intellect," and "The Emotions and the Will." Perhaps his work on "Mental
and Moral Science" is his best-known contribution to student literature.
Although he is the author of books on grammar and composition, Professor
Bain's style is always oppressively heavy and unattractive. As Spencer
and Bain combined psychology with physiology, so it was the effort of
Boole and De Morgan to extend the scope of logic by an ingenious
application of mathematics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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