3 z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



can understand how a man might obtain such an acquaintance with 

 the literary or artistic style of some human author or artist, as should 

 embolden him to pronounce an opinion as to whether a certain piece of 

 work was or \v:is not from the master's hand ; but we do not see that 

 any one has it in his power so to con the works of Deity as to author- 

 ize him in Baying that he knows the Divine style, and is therefore in a 

 position to decide which of two plans of action is most in harmony 

 therewith. We have before us simply the facts that Nature presents ; 

 our task is to see these in the most rational order possible, knowing 

 well that, however enlarged our knowledge may become, a p< rj\ ct in- 

 terpretation of the facts will forever be beyond our reach. Whatever 

 view, therefore, may at any moment best colligate and harmonize the 

 phenomena of the universe, that view if we are going to concern our- 

 selves with Divine plans we must regard as most nearly revealing the 

 Divine plan. But to allow our interpretation of the phenomena to be 

 overborne and controlled by any a priori conceptions, such as Mr. Cur- 

 tis seeks to force upon us, of the Divine nature and attributes, is simply 

 to abandon science and betake ourselves to dogma and mysticism. 



Now, to be quite frank, we don't believe Mr. Curtis is one bit better 

 a judge of the Divine style in creation than the very humblest among 

 us. It is puzzling enough to know how merely superior human facul- 

 ties will work. The child can not understand the mind of its father 

 in matters beyond its own experience, and can not sec the wisdom of 

 its father's actions. The inferior man can not understand the mind of 

 the superior man. We can hardly imagine anything more ridiculous, 

 certainly nothing more hopeless, than an attempt by weak or unde- 

 veloped minds to comprehend the workings or appraise the manifesta- 

 tions of minds of a higher order ; yet what is the interval between the 

 youngest child and its parent, between the most uninstrueted peasant 

 and the mightiest philosopher, compared with that existing hot ween, 

 say, Mr. Curtis, and that mind which he proclaims to be infinite, yet 

 offers to interpret for us ? Surely, then, it is not without good reason 

 that the leading scientific investigators of our dav have decided on 

 conducting their researches in entire independence of all theological 

 assumptions. They feel instinctively that the moment they begin to 

 draw deductions from theological premises, even the most plausible, 

 their conclusions cease to have scientific validity, ami that science 

 itself becomes a mere aborted appendage to theology. 



It is time, however, to proceed to a somewhat closer examination 

 of the work before us. The author is much struck, in the first place, 

 with the parallel he finds existing between the Platonic theory (or 

 rather myth) of creation as developed in the "Timoeus" and the Dar- 

 winian theory of the origin of species, including the human. We 

 fail, for our part, to see much resemblance between a myth in which 

 everything which is referred to the arbitrary and purposive acts of an 

 imaginary divinity, and a scientific theory which ascribes all growth 



