Professor Draper's Book [pp. 155-174]

Professor Draper's Books.
PROFESSOR DRAPER'S BOOKS.*
PROFESSOR DRAPER'S works have
had, and are having, a very rapid
sale, and are evidently very highly
esteemed by that class of readers
who take an interest, without being
very profoundly versed, in the grave
subjects which he treats. He is, we
believe, a good chemist and a respectable physiologist. His work
on Human Physiology, we have
been assured by those whose judgment in such matters we prefer to
our own, is a work of real merit, and
was, when first published, up to the
level of the science to which it is
devoted. We read it with care on
its first appearance, and the impression it left on our mind was, that the
author yields too much to the theory
of chemical action in physiology, and
does not remember that man is the
union of soul and body, and that the
soul modifies, even in the body, the
action of the natural laws; or rather,
that the physiological laws of brute
matter, or even of animals, cannot be
applied to man without many important reserves. The Professor,
indeed, recognizes, or says he recognizes, in man a rational soul, or an
immaterial principle; but the recognition seems to be only a verbal concession, made to the prejudices of
those who have some lingering belief
in Christianity, for wve find no use
for it in his physiology. All the
physiological phenomena he dwells
* I. Hzuman Physiology, Staticql and Dynamical; or, Conditio,s and Course of the Lfe of ofan.
By J. W. Draper, MI.D., LL.D., Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of New York.
New York: Harper & Brothers. x856. 8vo, pp. 649.
2. History of the Intellectual DeveloAment of Eurof.e.
By the same. Fifth edition. x867. 8vo, pp. 628.
3. Tho,ughts on the Civil Policy of A merica. By
the samne. Third edition. x867. 8vo, pp. 325. 4.
History of the A merican Civil IVar. By the same.
In three volumes. Vol. I. x867. 8vo, pp. 567.
on he explains without it, that is,
as far as he explains them at all.
Whatever his personal belief may
be, his doctrine is as purely materialistic as is Mr. Herbert Spencer's,
which explains all the phenomena of
life by the mechanical, chemical, and
electrical changes and combinations
of matter.
It is due to Professor Draper to
say, that in this respect he only sins
in common with the great body of
modern physiologists. Physiology
-indeed, all the inductive scienceshave been for a long time cast in a
materialistic mould, and men of firm
faith, and sincere and ardent piety,
are materialists, and, therefore, atheists, the moment they enter the field
of physical science, and deny in their
science what they resolutely affirmn
and would die for ina their faith.
Hence the quarrel between the theologians and the savans. The savans
have not reconciled their so-called
science with the great theological
truths, whether of reason or revelation, which only the fool doubts, or
in his heart denies. This proves that
our physicists have made far less
progress in the sciences than they
are in the habit of boasting. That
cannot be true in physiology which
is false in theology; and a physiology
that denies all reality but matter, or
finds no place in it for God and the
human soul, is no true physiological
science. The physiologist has far
less evidence of the existence of matter than I have of the existence of
spirit; and it is only by spirit that
the material is apprehensible, or can
be shown to exist. Matter only mimics or imitates spirit.
The continual changes that take
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