Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/767

Rh in astronomy, geology, physiology, and the various branches of natural phenomena; and it is those who are now pushing scientific methods of thought into fields where they have hitherto been unrecognized, that are most obnoxious to criticism as meddlers, disturbers, and destructives. The world at length accepts the work, and when it is accomplished will even applaud those who began it; but it as yet by no means recognizes the necessity of sharper questioning, of exploration in new fields, of a more inexorable scrutiny of old opinions, or the necessity of accepting the initial work of pioneer thinkers as legitimate and indispensable.

And so it is that intrepid scientists like Prof. Tyndall, who push on the front and give battle right and left, must take the consequences, as their predecessors have done in the past. The President of the British Association took a step forward at Belfast, and has been in hot water ever since. He assumed the broad, advanced ground that the exploration of the universe, so far as it is accessible to human faculties, belongs to science; and that every system, doctrine, or belief, that has hitherto been put forth regarding the nature, origin, or government of the universe which lays claim to the character of knowledge, must submit its pretensions to be passed upon by the tribunal of science. Science having given to man the universe as we know it, has established its claim to be intrusted with the whole field of intellectual exploration into its methods and laws. It was undoubtedly a bold step for President Tyndall to take, but it was inevitable by the logic of the history of thought. That the batteries should have been opened upon him all around was quite natural, and is but the repetition upon a somewhat larger scale of what has been going on in a smaller way ever since the scientific study of Nature began.

One of the controversies which grew out of the position taken by Tyndall, before the British Association, was with Dr. James Martineau, who is carrying it on vigorously and expansively. He first attacked the Belfast Address in a discourse entitled "Religion as affected by Modern Materialism," delivered to the theological college of which he is principal. To this Prof. Tyndall replied in a new preface to the "Fragments of Science," which appeared in the of last December. Dr. Martineau now rejoins in the February Contemporary, in an elaborate article, with more to come. We should be glad to print his paper if it were within limits practicable for the But twenty-three pages, with the expectation of as many more, would consume more space than we can spare, and it is of less importance that we should issue it, as Mr. Putnam, Dr. Martineau's American publisher, will shortly furnish it to interested readers.

We may, however, briefly take note of Dr. Martineau's general position. He assumes that mischiefs arise, to both science and theology, from confusing their boundaries, and these he attempts to define. He seems to regard them as coördinate departments of investigation, and "that, in their dealings with phenomena, science investigates the 'How,' and theology the 'Whence.'" But on this view theology becomes obviously but one division of science, and is swallowed up by it. In investigating the "how" of things we are simply inquiring into one phase of their order, and in investigating their "whence" we are but inquiring into another phase of the same order. Moreover, we are finding that the investigation of the "how" involves the investigation of the "whence;" so that both procedures are directed to the solution of a common problem. Where are the defining boundaries when one thing is lost in another?

The more common theological position takes the "whence" out of the