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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



speaks of " people who are in rebellion 

 against all order in society ; who think 

 marriages should be dissolvable at will ; 

 that parents ought to have no control 

 over their children," and so on through 

 quite a list of absurdities, the last being 

 the opinion that " any quack or im- 

 postor who chooses to put a brass plate 

 on his door calling himself a physician, 

 a lawyer, or what not, should occupy 

 exactly the same position as those who 

 have entered the various professions 

 after complying with the constituted 

 educational test of fitness." Now, we 

 are not acquainted with any persons, 

 nor have we heard of any, who hold 

 this opinion ; but we do know of some 

 who consider that if there is anything 

 that tends to bring the capable man 

 and the ignoramus down to a common 

 level, it is the brass door-plate under 

 existing conditions. The public under- 

 stand now that they have a guarantee 

 that the M. D. on a door-plate or 

 diploma means something definite ; 

 whereas the fact is that it may cover 

 the widest possible diversity of attain- 

 ments and abilities. The present sys- 

 tem casts a kind of mysterious sanctity 

 round the very blunders of the author- 

 ized physician, so that good wives may 

 be heard talking of them with bated 

 breath almost as if they were treading 

 on holy ground. The doctor in fact is 

 treated in general with far more con- 

 sideration and even reverence than the 

 minister, and, so far as we can see, his 

 science only suffers through the dis- 

 tinction made in his favor. Whatever 

 Mrs. Fawcett may think of it, we are 

 strongly of opinion that medical science 

 will never make the progress it is capa- 

 ble of till it is wholly set free from 

 state control. Instead of such freedom 

 placing the impostor and the competent 

 practitioner on a level, it is the very 

 thing, we are persuaded, that would 

 do most to drive impostors, certified 

 and non-certified, out of the "profes- 

 sion." 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Moral Teachings of Science. By Arabella 

 B. Buckley (Mrs. Fisher). New York: 

 D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 122. Price, 15 

 cents. 



Science has been many times accused of 

 having no tendency toward morality, and, in 

 fact, of exerting an opposite influence by re- 

 leasing men from some restraints that for- 

 merly held them to the path of virtue. It is 

 true that the adherents of science have not 

 yet been able to construct a complete system 

 of ethics, based on the evolution philoso- 

 phy, but their position has been that of a 

 builder who is jeered at because his house 

 has no roof before he has had time to raise 

 its walls in the face of the hindrances 

 thrown in his way by his critics. The old 

 conception of the universe is a growth of tens 

 of centuries ; must the new be thoroughly 

 worked out in a single generation? How- 

 ever, scientists have no disposition to shirk 

 the ethical problem, and now that they have 

 achieved a suitable vantage-ground are already 

 beginning to develop a solution of it. The 

 present volume is designed to show in a sim- 

 ple manner that science does tend to produce 

 moral conduct, and how its moral teachings 

 are to be looked for. The author affirms at 

 the outset that acquaintance with scientific 

 truth can not give us false guidance with re- 

 spect to conduct. If selfishness is not the 

 universal law of progress, she says, "we 

 need have no fear that the study of natural 

 laws will mislead us into believing it. With 

 our limited knowledge we may often be per- 

 plexed, but so long as we do not overstrain 

 the facts we shall not be confounded. If it 

 be true that the instincts which lead us to 

 be just and merciful, honest and unselfish, 

 pure and affectionate, to fear moral degra- 

 dation, and to aspire to nobleness of charac- 

 ter, are inherent in the very laws of our 

 being, then we shall find the gradual devel- 

 opment of these qualities in the groundwork 

 of living nature. In a word, we shall find 

 evidence that high moral duties are not 

 true merely because all religions have taught 

 them, but that all religions have taught them 

 because they are true." 



The author admits no question as to the 

 existence of God, but declares that his " ul- 

 timate nature and attributes" "must tran- 



