.

In truth, however, it is a pretty thin sort of Physiology to which this
extension is to be given,--resembling water in this respect also. Our
physiological philosopher seeks to prove (in 631 octavo pages) that
there are in history five perpetually recurring epochs, answering--the
reader will please consider--to the Infancy, Childhood, Youth, Maturity,
and Old Age of the individual body. So much, therefore, as one would
know concerning Physiology in its application to the individual body, in
virtue of being aware that men pass from infancy to age, thus much does
Dr. Draper propose to teach his readers concerning the said science in
its application to History. Add now that his induction rests almost
wholly on _two_ main instances, of which one is yet incomplete! Should
one, therefore, say that his logic is somewhat precipitate, and his
"science" somewhat lacking in matter, he would appear not to prefer a
wholly groundless charge.

Were Dr. Draper simply giving a History of the Intellectual Development
of Europe, he could, of course, relate only such facts as exist; and
should it appear that this history has but two cycles, one of them
incomplete, he would be under no obligation to make more. But such is
not the case. His "history" is purely a piece of polemic. His aim is to
establish a formula for all history, past, present, and to come; and, in
this view, the paucity of instances on which his induction rests becomes
worthy of comment.

And this disproportion between induction and conclusion becomes still
more glaring, when it is observed that he expects his formula for all
history to carry an inference much larger than itself. Dr. Draper is
devoted to a materialistic philosophy, and his moving purpose is to
propagate this. He holds that Psychology must be an inference from
Physiology,--that the whole science of Man is included in a science of
his body. His two perpetual aims are, first, to absorb all physical
science in theoretical materialism,--second, to absorb all history in
physical science. And beside the ambition of his aims one must say that
his logic has an air of slenderness.

This work, then, may be described as a review of European history,
written in obedience to two primary and two secondary assumptions, as
follows:--

_Primary Assumptions_: First, that man is fully determined by his
"corporeal organization"; second, that all corporeal organizations, with
their whole variety and character, are due s