Argumentum ad Communem Sensum

Abstract

WE are told on the highest authority that there are things which God has hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. The extraordinary claim which Mr. Klyce makes in this book is that the whole riddle of the universe has a- verifiable solution which can be made plain to a child of six. Quantitatively indeed, the child might find this book an overdose, but qualitatively it would understand the argument. The author speaks from knowledge, for he tells us he has tried it and found it is so. The preliminary prospectus is so extravagant, and the account of the conception and production of the book (which we are told was rejected by eighteen publishers and turned down by twenty-five financiers, and consequently had to be printed by the author in a press set up by himself for the purpose) is so amusingly naive that the serious student would probably decide on a priori grounds that its value is zero, were he not arrested by the names of three distinguished scholars who have made themselves sponsors for the author and his work. Two of them, Prof. J. Dewey and Dr. David Starr Jordan, enjoy a world-wide reputation. We are compelled, therefore, to treat Mr. Klyce's book seriously.

Universe.

By Scudder Klyce. With Three Introductions by David Starr Jordan, Prof. John Dewey, and Morris Llewellyn Cooke. Pp. x + 251. (Winchester, Mass.: The Author, 1921.) 10s.