This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...and individual strength. Natural science, which thrives on the various enlarged observations of many inquirers, and their rapid interchange of results, now knows no limits to its growth. Social theories, which pertain to the masses, and require for their quick development argument and answer, assertion and counter-assertion, principles and exceptions, coming in from all sides, pass almost immediately from conception to promulgation, from promulgation with amendments and re-amendments to adoption. The entire community, with its rapid interchange of sentiments, is a single legislative body on these topics, recommitting them, from time to time, to their first friends and advocates for further digestion. Fiction, which is the literary food of the many, is productive as never before. From that which is inexpressibly bad to that which is exceedingly good, it grows in indigenous strength, flourishes as on its native soil. Mathematics, metaphysics, theology, on the other hand, which prosper in the solitude of the meditative mind; forms of poetry and art which mark the strong individuality of their authors, either absolutely lose ground, or fail to keep pace with the general progress. That the popular mind, when it first enters the field of sentiment and knowledge, should grade down the current literature and science to its own taste, is inevitable, and, in view of all results, not to be regretted. Yet this fact is not in contradiction of the fact, that it is the more necessary sturdily to resist this tendency, and to maintain individual tastes and pursuits as against this all-controlling voice of the majority. Something of this struggle has been seen in the lecture-system for the past half-dozen years. Appealing directly to the people for...