1 52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



region the region of the higher emotions and to respect science as 

 it would have science respect it. Then all will be well. 



It is observable that Dr. Abbott is no more anxious to discuss the 

 strict theological doctrine of redemption than he is to enter into the 

 details of the third chapter of Genesis. He prefers to deal with the 

 process of redemption in its most general aspects, as consisting in the 

 action of a higher nature on a lower. Taken in this accommodated 

 and accommodating sense it is not at all hard to believe in ; and the 

 evolutionist may well congratulate himself that a term of such special 

 theological import, so commonly associated with the supposed efficacy 

 of bloody sacrifices, is capable of being explained by a doctor of 

 divinity in so natural and human a manner. It is satisfactory, also, 

 to note that the reverend doctor does not summon the modern philos- 

 opher, on pain of intellectual confusion, to accept the Bible or any 

 portion of it, but only such truths as are affirmed by the " universal 

 consciousness." He mentions certain chapters of the Bible, but chiefly 

 for the purpose of deprecating the spending of much time upon a 

 discussion of their meaning. In spite, therefore, of an apparently 

 aggressive tone, the learned doctor's article, when closely examined, 

 may almost be regarded as a kind of Eirenicon. Possibly, like a very 

 ancient scriptural character, he may have meant to say worse things 

 than he actually succeeded in uttering. Science has its foes, who 

 would like to hear it denounced ; but it is not always easy to com- 

 mand the prophets. Many of them know too much, and are too 

 sound at heart, to rail at the modern Israel. 



A few words in conclusion. The evolutionist, or, as we should pre- 

 fer to say, the modern scientific thinker, is not necessarily or natu- 

 rally an irreligious man. Conversing, as he tries to do, with truths of 

 deep and wide significance, and seeing, as perhaps no one not engaged 

 on equally wide questions can see, the littleness of all individual 

 thought and effort in comparison with the vast operations of Nature 

 and the limitless record of human action in general, he is not prone 

 either to set his own personality up as an object of worship, or volun- 

 tarily to cage himself in a narrow materialistic philosophy. What he 

 sees and feels at every moment is, that the universe outruns him on 

 every side, and that he can only be baffled and beaten in any attempt to 

 do more than take due note of the succession of phenomena. It is a 

 duty with him, however, to limit his affirmations to the exact facts he 

 has observed. To go beyond them would be to him as distinctly a sin 

 as to others it would be an act of piety. This is why he can not join 

 in many of the devout phrases by which others ease their hearts. It 

 is not that his heart does not at times require easing too, or that these 

 phrases have not, considered in themselves and in their associations, 

 a decided efficacy for that purpose, but simply that he does not him- 

 self feel authorized to make the affirmations which the phrases either 

 make or imply. The average member of society has probably little 



