EDITOR'S TABLE. 



749 



whole ; which may all he true, though 

 the hirth strikes me as hardly worthy 

 of so long and so tremendous a parturi- 

 tion." 



Mr. Godwin declares that the doc- 

 trine of Evolution, of which he seems to 

 have a very tortuous conception, is an 

 instance of illegitimate science. The 

 nebular hypothesis is its first and re- 

 motest " twist," and so Kant, Laplace, 

 Herschel, Huggins, and a multitude of 

 other astronomers who have contribu- 

 ted to its establishment are to be 

 pitched over the enclosure as pseudo- 

 scientists ! If the reader will glance at 

 the excellent paper of Prof. Leconte in 

 the preceding pages, on the Nebular 

 Hypothesis, he will quickly see what 

 Mr. Godwin's opinion in this matter is 

 worth. 



But the foregoing passage has a fur- 

 ther significance ; it gives an interest- 

 ing clew to Mr. Godwin's estimate of 

 the value of the universe. It is not 

 worth production by so tedious a pro- 

 cess as that of Evolution; but, if got up 

 in six days indefinite periods being 

 excluded Mr. Godwin would probably 

 allow that it is worth cost. Es- 

 timates of the natural world will of 

 course vary with the knowledge of it. 

 The first valuation was made in times 

 of blank ignorance of Nature, and still 

 harmonizes with that state of mind. 

 Yet Mr. Godwin's position evinces 

 progress, because in the pre-scientific 

 ages Nature was not only despised 

 as worthless, but hated as worse than 

 worthless. The whole scheme was 

 regarded as under a divine curse, and 

 its students were put into prison and 

 punished in various ways. We are past 

 all that now, and Nature is considered 

 as of some interest and fit enough to 

 be studied by those who like it if 

 they will consent to have bits in their 

 mouths and be kept within suitable 

 bounds. There has been progress, be- 

 cause the dispensation of hate has been 

 succeeded by that of indifference ; but 

 still the devotion of men of science to 



the study of Nature is a popular puz- 

 zle. It is not yet looked upon as the 

 highest occupation of the human mind 

 to extend our knowledge of the order 

 of things around us. On the part 

 of classes still called educated, thera 

 survives an ill- concealed contempt for 

 the mental pursuits of mere collectors, 

 observers, and experimenters. It is not 

 now so bad as when in England Lady 

 Glanville's will was attempted to be set 

 aside on the ground of lunacy, evinced 

 by no other evidence than a fondness 

 for collecting insects; yet enthusiastic 

 naturalists who ransack field and forest, 

 mountain and sea, are still regarded as 

 a class apart as eccentric objects of 

 curiosity, not to be compared in dignity 

 with the students of art, literature, and 

 metaphysics. So much of the old spirit 

 continues that, as objects of thought 

 and in the education of to-day, the 

 works of man are ranked as superior 

 to the works of God. Nor is it by any 

 means considered so very desirable to 

 know all about Nature. Large numbers 

 of the cultivators of sentimental litera- 

 ture still protest that, if the world w r ere 

 once understood, it would no longer be 

 worth living in. The heads of college- 

 bred people are still filled with old 

 childish fictions which are fondly 

 cherished, and science, because it would 

 clear away the mountains of this rub- 

 bish, in which the seekers after a lib- 

 eral education are still made to delve, 

 is dreaded as a desolating agency that 

 would bereave us of all that is most 

 refining and ennobling in culture. In 

 his speech, Mr. Godwin goes off 

 with double objurgation, as follows: 

 " ' Great God ! " as Wordsworth says 



. . . . " 'Great God ! I'd rather be 

 A pagan suckled* on a creed outworn ; 

 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 

 Have glimpses that would make me less for- 

 lorn. 

 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 

 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.' " 



Now, this may be all very well for 

 callow sophomores ; but when old fel- 



