Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/422

408 distress about it. Some are for "giving in," some are for patching up compromises, and some for "fighting it out." Meanwhile the tide is carrying everything before it, and the confusion of the unready waxes grotesque. The foreign periodicals arrive monthly loaded with evolutionary discussions; and in the last "Contemporary Review" Calderwood, of Edinburgh, announces that even Hegelianism is but "dialectical evolution."

The "Observer" suggests that we make such a periodical "as the great body of intelligent people will admit with confidence to their homes." This sounds well, but what is it in a little plainer English? "Divest your 'Monthly' of every feature that can be objectionable to those who care a good deal more for theological than for scientific teachings, and who have a horror of all science as tending to infidelity. We should not be permitted to say a word of the progress of scientific thought, because hardly a step is taken anywhere that somebody with a dogma in that direction does not cry, "Halt, you destroyer of religion!" We indulge in no exaggeration. The "Observer" is authority here, and right above the article in which it recommends that the "Monthly" be kicked off the premises, we read, What kind of a scientific magazine would that he which should be suited to the state of mind of the dismal creatures who take such a view of science as this? We should rather take the "Observer's" alternative, and be kicked into the street, than to edit such a periodical.

The "Observer" accuses science of "forging weapons to destroy the faith"; but need we remind it that science destroys nothing but ignorance and error? Only where faith is the enemy of truth can science be the enemy of faith. Science is the best friend of faith, for only when it has destroyed all it may, can faith have any "abiding foundation." We are afraid that, when the "Observer" invokes the publishers' boot as a censor of science, it betrays some want of confidence in its own foundation. What shall we say of the security of a religious edifice built upon the basis of literal Old Testament history? But in the very next column to the article we are noticing, it is laid down:

No more complete or more mischievous mistake can be committed than to impute to the scientists of this age any hostility to religion as the motive of their labors. That the course of inquiry often conflicts with cherished tenets is undoubtedly true, and it is a painful fact; but to charge scientific men with any intention of inflicting this pain, or to make them responsible for it, is wholly unjust. The world has never seen in all its history a class of men more noble in purpose, more fair-minded, more candid, tolerant, or considerate, than the class of men who, in all countries, though with a common spirit, have devoted themselves to the truth—as it is in science. They have done their work with a single-mindedness, a freedom from partisan and sectarian passion, and an openness and uprightness of purpose, that find no parallel in any other great group of men engaged in the advancement of a common interest. These men are entitled to stand first in the respect and confidence of the community; and to accuse them of being animated in their study of nature by a desire to destroy religion, or to wound the feelings of religious people, is thoroughly unjustifiable.

"The Popular Science Monthly" is a record of the scientific activity of the age for the last ten years, and it reflects the breadth, the independence, and the catholicity of thought that distinguish