500 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



TYNDALL AND HIS REVIEWERS. 



TTTE print in full the masterly 

 VV reply of Prof. Tyndall to the 

 attacks of his critics, which is prefixed 

 as a preface to a new edition of the 

 Belfast discourse. It was not to be 

 expected that he would remain pas- 

 sive under the unscrupulous assaults 

 to which he has been subjected; nor 

 that, when he did speak, he would make 

 any half- way work with his assail- 

 ants. Our readers will agree that they 

 have got no more than they deserve ; 

 and we think that every competent 

 reasonermust admit that Prof. Tyndall's 

 rejoinder to the main charges against 

 his address is conclusive. 



In regard to the wisdom of opening 

 and pursuing this important question, 

 there can, we think, be no serious doubt. 

 It can be condemned only by condemn- 

 ing the general desirableness of dis- 

 cussion, the analysis of opinions, and the 

 comparison of conflicting views. It has 

 been wisely said that of the three states 

 of mind, or stages of conviction the 

 unanimity of the ignorant, the dis- 

 agreement of the inquiring, and the 

 unanimity of the wise the second is at 

 all events the parent of the third. He 

 who drags people out of the slothfulness 

 and stagnation of ignorant unanimity, 

 even though thinking engenders dis- 

 cord and dispute, is doing a wholesome 

 and necessary work. This is what 

 Prof. Tyndall has very successfully ac- 

 complished. If to concentrate public 

 attention upon a subject of great and 

 acknowledged importance, to summon 

 the most powerful minds to its re- 

 examination, and to secure the keenest 

 scrutiny into all its aspects and bear- 

 ings, be the way to arrive at its clearer 

 understanding, then has the author of 

 the Belfast address done an eminent 

 service to his generation. Such ser- 



vices are always useful, but they be- 

 come of high and especial value when 

 the problems brought forward are new, 

 or are old problems which have ac- 

 quired new meanings by a change of 

 the circumstances in which they are 

 considered. The critics of Prof. Tyn- 

 dall tell us that he has raised a very old 

 question, one which comes up alike 

 in every age, which is no nearer a 

 settlement now than it was thousands 

 of years ago, and which is just as in- 

 soluble for modern science as for an- 

 cient theology. But it is not easy to 

 understand how the mere calling up of 

 an obsolete and hopeless question, that 

 derives no new significance from the 

 present state of knowledge, should have 

 made so profound an impression upon 

 the strongest minds, in widely-separated 

 countries, and in this age of absorbing 

 intellectual activity. A startling state- 

 ment may arrest momentary attention, 

 but, if empty and futile, why should its 

 interest be so sustained? For three 

 months after the delivery of Tyndall's 

 address we were deluged with com- 

 ments, dissections, exposures, and ref- 

 utations by the daily and weekly 

 press, and, had it been as vacant of vital 

 meaning and pertinent application as 

 many allege, its force would long before 

 this have been spent, and the subject 

 would have died away as a mere super- 

 ficial and transient excitement. But 

 things have gone quite differently. The 

 interest has increased rather than de- 

 clined, and to the rattle of newspaper 

 musketry begins now to succeed the roar 

 of the monthly and quarterly artillery. 

 And this for the adequate reason that 

 new elements are at work, old questions 

 are reshaped, and appear in new rela- 

 tions, while the controversy takes on an 

 aspect that it never presented before, 

 and requires to be searched and sifted 



