554 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE 8PHEBE OF SCIENCE. 



TTTE publish in this number a 

 V V criticism by a gentleman who, 

 we understand, is connected with one 

 of our most distinguished universi- 

 ties, of the article which appeared in 

 these columns some months ago un- 

 der the title of Back to Dogma. In 

 that article we maintained that the 

 then recent address of Lord Salis- 

 bury, as President of the British As- 

 sociation, was, to all intents and pur- 

 poses, an appeal to the scientific world 

 to put on once more those dogmatic 

 shackles from which the philosoph- 

 ical advance of the present century 

 was supposed to have set it free ; and 

 we endeavored to show how fatal to 

 the further progress of scientific 

 theory a compliance with such a 

 suggestion would be. The author 

 of the article we are now publishing 

 seems to agree with us entirely that 

 the general drift of the address was 

 reactionary; but he considers that 

 we go too far in another direction 

 when we say that the reintroduction 

 of the doctrine of design, as an ex- 

 planation of things which challenge 

 our curiosity, would mean " the death 

 of scientific investigation." 



If we have published this article 

 we have done so and we think it 

 right to make the statement less 

 upon its merits as a piece of scien- 

 tific or philosophical argumentation, 

 than because we are anxious to give 

 every opportunity for the free and 

 fair criticism of opinions expressed 

 in this journal. Science does not 

 admit of any one-sided expositions; 

 and it knows no orthodoxy save that 

 which open discussion, free from all 

 bias of self-interest and prejudice, 

 may at any given moment appear to 

 establish. It has always been the 



aim of this journal to convey to its 

 readers the idea that science is not 

 a rigid system of unalterable deduc- 

 tions, but consists essentially in the 

 gradual adaptation of the thought of 

 mankind to the ever-unfolding as- 

 pects and meanings of the universe. 

 While holding our own views, there- 

 fore, of the questions which from 

 time to time occupy the attention of 

 the scientific world, we not only have 

 no desire to exclude contrary expres- 

 sions of opinion, but are entirely pre- 

 pared to extend to them a cordial hos- 

 pitality, provided they are stamped 

 with a reasonable degree of logical 

 force and adequacy. The address 

 delivered by the Marquis of Salis- 

 bury was a case in point: we could 

 not agree with its main positions, 

 but neither could we deny that it 

 was a highly plausible and, upon the 

 whole, extremely able presentment 

 of a view which formerly found mul- 

 titudes of adherents, and still finds 

 not a few. We therefore made a 

 point of transferring it to our col- 

 umns, while reserving the liberty to 

 criticise it, as we did, in this portion 

 of our journal. In the same spirit 

 we publish Mr. Clark's article in 

 which our criticism is called in ques- 

 tion ; and we have now to consider 

 how far his objections to the posi- 

 tion taken by us are valid. 



As already mentioned, our critic 

 agrees with us as to the reactionary 

 character of Lord Salisbury's address. 

 We expressed our sense of this by 

 the heading we gave to our article 

 Back to Dogma ! and we hardly 

 think it can be denied that if a reac- 

 tionary movement takes place in the 

 scientific world it must carry us back 

 to dogma. That scientific investi- 

 gation was formerly dominated by 



