The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and Discussions

Book excerpt: This is a collection of essays written at various times and for various objects. In this book, it will be found that the first three essays belong to the class described as Pleas, and the last three more or less to that of Discussions. The author of this book pleads that: The Scientific Spirit of the Age, while it has given us many precious things, is, in its present exorbitant development, depriving us of things more precious still. The Education of the Emotions (to be carried on chiefly through the contagion of good and noble sentiments) is an object of paramount importance, albeit nearly ignored in ordinary systems of education. With the present disintegration of all religious opinion, Judaism may yet become a progressive, and cease to be merely a tribal, faith; and, if it absorbs the moral and spiritual essence of Christianity, it may solve the great problem of combining a theology consonant to modern philosophy with worship hallowed by the sacred associations of the remotest past. In the last three essays, the author discusses: The relation of Knowledge to Happiness The real—as distinguished from the conventional—character of our common processes of Thought The respective claims of Town and Country Life to be esteemed most healthy and felicitous for body and mind.