Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/350

328 page 144, and read: "It is in one respect a calamity of our time and country that unbelievers, instead of, as in France, honestly avowing their sentiments, disguise them by studious reticence—as Mr. Darwin at first studiously disguised his views as to the bestiality (!) of man, and as the late Mr. Mill silently allowed himself to be represented to the public as a thorough believer in God." Along with this passage we take the remarks on "Mr. Winwood Reade, a friend and ardent disciple of Mr. Darwin," and on the teachings of "our English physical expositors" (pp. 393−395), and then ask whether the author is not, by implication at least, charging Mr. Darwin with atheism? This is the more probable, as we can find no saving clause or limitation guarding against such a construction being put upon these passages. Still, in a charge so grave the accused is entitled to the benefit of the faintest doubt, and Mr. Mivart may therefore claim a verdict of "Not proven." It is time, however, that we came to a full understanding about the foul practice of introducing charges of atheism in scientific controversy. On this subject we beg to offer the following considerations:

1. Charges of "heresy," "infidelity," or "atheism," are beside the question. If a theory in astronomy, in geology, in physics, chemistry, or biology, is in doubt, let it be judged on its own evidence; that is, let it be compared respectively with astronomical, geological, physical, chemical, or biological facts, and, according as it is able or unable to account for and to harmonize such, let it stand or fall. The man who is unable or unwilling to do this convicts himself, from an intellectual point of view, either of impotence or perversity, and should leave controversy to others.

2. Such charges, further, are delusive. Not to speak of the thoroughly-trained scholar, even many of the "half-educated" know that almost every important discovery in science has been denounced by the "parti prêtre" (clerical party) as impious, heretical, and atheistic. A yearly volume of the Quarterly Journal of Science would not contain the abuse uttered by ecclesiastics against the Copernican theory of the solar system, against the doctrine of a plurality of worlds, the Newtonian view of the universe, the nebular hypothesis, the chronology of modern geologists, etc. Yet all these views, and many more which might be mentioned, were found—when passion had cooled and sober judgment had time to decide—perfectly compatible, not with theism merely, but with Christian revelation. What "the Church" has cursed in one generation, she "assimilates" in the next. What educated man, then, after reviewing the past, can dare to set aside modern theories in such a manner?

3. Such charges are, further, distinctly immoral, and even criminal. All civilized countries brand with ignominy the suitor or the advocate who suborns false witnesses, forges or destroys documents, or corrupts judges and juries. But the controversialist who charges his opponent with atheism stands in a precisely similar position. He