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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In his new and very interesting book 

 on "Volcanoes," Professor J. "W. Judd, 

 of London, has taken up this subject, 

 and his chapter on " The Part played 

 by Volcanoes in the Economy of Nat- 

 ure" impresses us like a powerful ser- 

 mon on the old problem of good and 

 evil and that has also something neio 

 in it. Professor Judd does not dwell 

 upon the moral aspect of the subject, 

 but we can not better introduce his 

 view to our readers than by a reference 

 to its ethical implications. 



Nothing, of course, can have less 

 claim upon the attention of men whose 

 intelligence, however considerable of 

 its sort, has never been directed to the 

 understanding of nature, than what 

 goes on in the interior of the earth. 

 That, says a representative of this class, 

 belongs to scientific speculation, and is 

 no concern of his. He knows, indeed, 

 of earthquakes and volcanoes as deadly 

 agencies by which great numbers of 

 lives are often ruthlessly destroyed; 

 and he regards them as conspicuous 

 examples of diabolism in nature; and 

 when he hears it said that "volcanoes 

 are the safety-valves of the globe," he 

 is very glad to know that they have 

 some possible use, however remote. 



Now, ethics the science of right 

 and wrong, of good and bad is certain- 

 ly not an exact science ; and yet it has 

 a quantitative basis. In the constitu- 

 tion of this world, good and evil are in- 

 extricably mixed up, and the problem 

 of their proportions is therefore fun- 

 damental in ethical inquiries. There is 

 always more or less of each, and there 

 are degrees of both. "We are familiar 

 with the terms small and great in their 

 applications to evil and good, and we 

 labor to diminish the former and in- 

 crease the latter. It is natural that the 

 estimates of the relative amounts of 

 good and evil should vary, especially as 

 so much depends upon the subjective 

 condition of the estimator. The pessi- 

 mist admits that there may be hours 

 and perhaps places in which good pre- 



vails; but he maintains that, on the 

 whole, evil so greatly predominates that 

 life is not worth living. The optimist 

 holds on the contrary that, while evil 

 may be supreme at times, good is as- 

 cendant in the large view. The ques- 

 tion between them, therefore, is mainly 

 one of relative quantities. 



If, now, it can be shown that in any 

 given case good prevails over evil, say 

 in the ratio of one hundred thousand to 

 one, it is obvious that the pessimist will 

 not have much margin left upon which 

 to make a stand ; and, if it can be fur- 

 ther proved that this ratio holds on a 

 stupendous scale, and, moreover, that it 

 includes just those malign manifesta- 

 tions of Nature that are most cited 

 as evidence of her vicious spirit, the 

 pessimist will be left in a still worse 

 predicament. This position may be fa- 

 miliarly illustrated. A certain consid- 

 erable amount of life is violently de- 

 stroyed each year by lightnings, storms, 

 and floods; yet these effects are only 

 the calamitous incidents of a great sys- 

 tem of circulation of water and air 

 over our globe by which all life is main- 

 tained. That system of movements 

 gives good and evil, but, compared 

 with their beneficence, the disastrous 

 results they produce are absolutely in- 

 significant. If we say that the good 

 prevails over the evil at the rate of a 

 million to one, the estimate is still very 

 far within the limits of truth. 



Professor Judd has shown that the 

 same principle holds in regard to vol- 

 canoes and earthquakes. We know 

 that by these agencies dwellings, vil- 

 lages, and even entire cities are reduced 

 to heaps of ruins, often with the direct 

 destruction of multitudes of people, and 

 furthermore that famines, pestilences, 

 and social disorganizations frequently 

 follow. But these catastrophes, terri- 

 ble as they may be, are the results of 

 a system of overwhelming beneficence. 

 The subterranean energies, of which 

 earthquakes and volcanoes are the 

 striking manifestations, are necessary to 



