EDITOR'S TABLE. 



125 



I might coin a word, I should say that 

 science wasatheous. and therefore could 

 not be atheistic; that is to say, its 

 investigations and reasonings are by 

 agreement conversant simply with ob- 

 served facts and conclusions drawn 

 from them, and in this sense it is athe- 

 ous, or without recognition of God. And 

 because it is so, it does not in any way 

 trench upon theism, or theology, and can 

 not be atheistic, or in the condition of 

 denying the being of God. Take the 

 case of physical astronomy. To the 

 mathematician the mechanics of the 

 heavens are in no way different from 

 the mechanics of a clock. It is true 

 that the clock must have had a maker ; 

 but the mathematician who investigates 

 any problem connected with its mech- 

 anism has nothing to do with him as 

 such. The spring, the wheels, the es- 

 capement, and the rest of the works 

 are all in their proper places somehow, 

 and it matters nothing to the mathe- 

 matician how they came there. As a 

 mathematician the investigator of clock- 

 motion takes no account of the existence 

 of clock-makers; but he does not deny 

 their existence ; he has no hostile feel- 

 ing toward them; he may be on the 

 very best terms with many of them; 

 it may be that, at the request of one of 

 them who has invented some new move- 

 ment, he has undertaken the investiga- 

 tions. Precisely in the same way the 

 man who investigates the mechanics of 

 the heavens finds a complicated system 

 of motion, a number of bodies mutually 

 attracting each other and moving ac- 

 cording to certain assumed laws. In 

 working out the results of his assumed 

 laws, the mathematician has no reason 

 to consider how the bodies came to be 

 as they are ; that they are as they are 

 is not only enough for him, but it would 

 be utterly beyond his province to inquire 

 how they came so to be. Therefore, so 

 far as his investigations are concerned, 

 there is no God; or, to use the word 

 above suggested, his investigations are 

 atheous. But they are not atheistic.'''' 



For the further working out of this 

 conception in his article, the Bishop 

 must be held responsible. We only 

 call attention to the position here as- 

 sumed, as illustrating the progress of a 

 liberal and rational theology. 



THE LONDON " TIMES" ON " CEREMO- 

 NIAL INSTITUTIONS." 



TnE attitude of the British press 

 for the last twenty years toward the 

 writings of Herbert Spencer is a curi- 

 ous study. It was natural enough that 

 Spencer could not get a publisher who 

 would take the pecuniary chances in 

 an interminable system of philosophy 

 opposed to all other systems, and based 

 upon an unaccepted and repugnant 

 doctrine ; and so nothing remained for 

 him but to publish himself. The works, 

 at any rate, were thus put squarely 

 upon their merits. The powerful agency 

 of publishers in influencing the press 

 was dispensed with ; and, as Spencer 

 was the last man to lift a finger for the 

 procurement of critical favor, his pub- 

 lications were left to themselves, edi- 

 tors being neither directly nor indirectly 

 bribed, placated, or flattered. The con- 

 sequence was that, with but few excep- 

 tions, the books were assailed with such 

 reckless misrepresentations that Spen- 

 cer was compelled to stop sending copies 

 to the press. Nor did he resume the 

 practice until increasing public interest 

 in his labors coerced critics into more 

 decency and fairness. 



Some influential journals, however 

 adopted the policy of silence, ignoring 

 Spencer's books altogether. The " Spec- 

 tator " has adopted this plan. Not a sin- 

 gle one of this author's works has ever 

 been reviewed in that journal ; and that 

 they were not thought to be worth re- 

 viewing could not be alleged, because 

 the chief editor of the "Spectator," 

 Mr. Hutton, went out of his way to 

 attack Spencer's ethical views in an 

 essay read before the Metaphysical So- 



