Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/619

Rh So the fanatics and infidels of one generation become the heroes and philanthropists of the next.

The Concord clique of philosophers has been in past years most bitterly denounced in orthodox circles, and the patriotic old town itself has been called "the hot-bed of moral poison," and various other names equally expressive of the temper of their originators. But now, the leader and exemplar of that radical coterie, the revered and beloved Emerson, lectures acceptably before the theological students of Andover Seminary, while its chapel pulpit has recently been occupied by a prominent Unitarian clergyman, who, thirty years since, would have been shunned by the Faculty as a teacher of dangerous and pernicious doctrine.

Agassiz was no less a truth-seeker, his spirit was no less reverent, his purpose no less pure, when he broached his unscriptural theory, than when he bowed his head in silent worship at the opening of the Penikese School. Now, when the year returns, and he returns no more, we could almost canonize his memory. But why was he anathematized a quarter of a century ago? Simply because his position at that time represented the flood-mark of scientific investigation. It has changed place since then, and Tyndall now stands at its level, and must bear the surging of every tide.

Nothing is more acceptable to the honest thinker than intelligent criticism. Matthew Arnold said ten years ago that it was the great want of Europe. Worthy antagonism is always a valuable auxiliary in the cause of truth. Under its eye, eloquence is not allowed to pass for evidence, nor assertion for argument. It stimulates and reënforces the scholar, and extinguishes the pedant. It tends to prevent men from becoming so ardently in love with their own theories as to be blind to their defects. If it is able, as at the best it is, to set in motion a counter-current of thought, clear and forcible, it has attained its highest uses and becomes a real power. But the mind of the critic should be to the thought before it as the plane-mirror, reflecting it in true colors and exact proportions; otherwise, instead of just criticism, there follows either too liberal indorsement or undue stricture, according to the bias of the writer.

Thus adequately to examine the scientific positions of the day, with a view of supplementing or subverting them, requires an amount of special preparation which few who have worked in other fields of thought have been able to make; for a certain familiarity with scientific nomenclature and experiment, which is often acquired collaterally by the good student, though of great interest and value to its possessor, is not a reasonable basis for revision of principles, methods, and deductions. The arts are all closely akin, and Sir Joshua Reynolds was a fine connoisseur in his own department, and perhaps, like Titania's transient love, he had "a reasonable good ear in music;" but he probably could not have written a competent critique on the