EDITOR'S TABLE. 



84> 



"flower in the crannied wall." But 

 are we to abandon or dispai-age what 

 we know about the chemical composi- 

 tion of the rose because there is that 

 in its synthesis which eludes us ? Or 

 are we to refuse our admiration to 

 the flower because its original ele- 

 ments promised no such revelation 

 of beauty ? 



" The world is what it is, for all our dust and 

 din" ; 



and the part of wisdom is to make 

 the best of it. If there are those who 

 think they discern a flaw in the title 

 of the moral law, and on that ac- 

 count propose to trample it under 

 their feet, all we can do is to keep 

 our eye on such and see that the 

 moral law is duly re-enforced by ma- 

 terial sanctions. A writer of more 

 than literary authority has described 

 " the law " as " a schoolmaster " (lit- 

 erally, pedagogue or child-conduct- 

 or) to bring us to the true source of 

 instruction ; and we may rightly in- 

 fer that the external precepts which 

 have more or less governed man- 

 kind in the past, by whatever au- 

 thority promulgated, have had for 

 their function to bring men to a rec- 

 ognition of the intrinsic moral qual- 

 ity of actions, and to incline them to 

 choose good in preference to evil. 

 The course of human evolution has 

 brought us a developed moral sense ; 

 and the important question for us 

 now is not whether that supreme 

 faculty was foreshadowed in the pre- 

 organic world, or whether it can be 

 read into the atomic philosophy ; but 

 whether it is a living fact today, 

 whether it is useful for guidance and 

 whether obedience to it is an essen- 

 tial condition of happiness. The 

 search for title-deeds is very well 

 within limits; but there was a time 

 when title-deeds were not, simply 

 because the conditions did not call 

 for them. The moral law is in pos- 

 session, and will remain in posses- 



sion, because it has become part of 

 the constitution of human nature. 



THE PATH OF SCIENTIFIC ADVANCE. 



In an excellent article on the late 

 Prof. Huxley, contributed by the 

 eminent Professor of Physiology at 

 the University of Cambridge to Na- 

 ture, and reprinted in this number 

 of the Monthly, we read that the 

 "note" of the "new morphology," 

 of which Huxley made himself so 

 earnest and successful an apostle, 

 was "not to speculate on guiding 

 forces and on the realization of ide- 

 als, but to determine the laws of 

 growth by the careful investigation, 

 as of so many special problems, of 

 what parts of different animals, as 

 shown, among other ways, by the 

 mode of their development, were 

 really the same or alike." The re- 

 sult of the prosecution of research 

 along this line, Prof. Foster says, 

 has been the acquisition since the 

 year 1850 of " a body of science 

 touching animal forms both recent 

 and extinct of which we may well 

 be proud," and that altogether apart 

 from the special discoveries which 

 may be traced directly or indirectly 

 to the influence of the Darwinian 

 theory of natural selection. 



We have thought it worth while 

 to cite this dictum of the Cambridge 

 professor as bearing somewhat close- 

 ly on a recent discussion in these 

 columns. A contributor who was 

 dissatisfied with certain references 

 we had made to the doctrine of de- 

 sign, put forward his own opinion to 

 the effect that the time had now 

 come for making design the Why ? 

 the guiding principle of research. 

 Such is manifestly not Prof. Foster's 

 opinion, or else, while commending 

 Huxley for throwing in his lot with 

 the "new morphology," he would 

 certainly have hinted that there was 

 a yet newer morphology, destined to 



