122 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



recognition ... (p. 522). To say that it is a 

 'law of nature' that a man should have a 

 property in the work of his hands, is no 

 more than saying that that on which a man 

 has imposed his labor is recognized by others 

 as something which should be his, just as he 

 is recognized by them as one that should be 

 his own master. ... It is only within a so- 

 ciety, as a relation between its members, 

 that there can be such a thing as a right, 

 and the right to free life rests on the com- 



mon will of society. Just as the recognized 

 interest of a society constitutes for each 

 member of it the right to free life, so it 

 constitutes the right to the instruments of 

 such life, and thus through the medium, first 

 of custom, then of law, securing them to 

 each." This is Prof. Leslie's thought in 

 amplified form, and it may be of interest to 

 Mr. Philpott to note the passage. 



John H. Wigmore. 

 Cambridge, Mass., September 14, 1S89. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



A MINOR ITT BUT NOT A SECT. 



A PROTESTANT minister in Oak- 

 land, Cal., in a recent address 

 on the subject of the public - school 

 system of the United States, expressed 

 himself as follows : " In one of the 

 schools of Sau Francisco Herbert Spen- 

 cer's ' Data of Ethics ' was intro- 

 duced as a text-book of morals as 

 palpable a violation of the law forbid- 

 ding sectarian instruction as the intro- 

 duction of the Catholic or Methodist 

 catechism ; for Herbert Spencer belongs 

 to that very small and narrow sect 

 which promulgates the creed of agnosti- 

 cism." If the reverend speaker had ta- 

 ken the ground that the " Data of Eth- 

 ics " was too abstruse a book to be placed 

 in the hands of public-school pupils, we 

 should have felt inclined to sustain his 

 objection. But when he says that to 

 introduce such a book is to give a secta- 

 rian character to the school in which it 

 is used, we must enter a protest. Sci- 

 ence is never sectarian ; philosophy is 

 never sectarian. Sectarian teaching be- 

 gins when you ask a man or a child to 

 assume what can not be proved, for the 

 sake of keeping within the dogmatic 

 lines that fence round some particular 

 creed. The followers of Mr. Spencer 

 may be a minority, but they are no more 

 a sect than were the adherents of the 

 Oopernican system of astronomy, or 

 than are the believers in the Darwinian 

 theory of natural selection. Mr. Spen- 

 cer makes no appeal to faith, but finds 



his premises in the common experience 

 of mankind. A pupil who was being 

 taught out of the "Data of Ethics" 

 would he quite at liberty to dispute 

 either the premises or the arguments of 

 the author ; and he would not he si- 

 lenced by the declaration that Mr. Spen- 

 cer was infallible. But when catechisms 

 are taught they are taught, not as con- 

 taining matter for discussion, but as 

 containing doctrines that must not be 

 disputed, on pain of more or less disa- 

 greeable consequences. Similarly, when 

 the Bible is read in school, it is read 

 not as a fallible record of events or a 

 fallible guide in morals, but as some- 

 thing absolutely authoritative the very 

 voice of God. It is perfectly obvious, 

 then, where sectarianism in education 

 begins : it begins just at the point where 

 doctrines of any kind, accepted on faith 

 by a portion of the community and not 

 discussible on grounds of reason, are 

 made a part of public-school instruction. 

 Sectarianism comes in whenever the 

 teacher is obliged to say " Hush ! " to 

 the inquiring scholar who wants his 

 reason satisfied before he will believe. 

 There is no sectarianism, on the other 

 hand, in making use of a book which 

 lays no claim to any kind of privilege, 

 and which, therefore, can not force the 

 belief of any one. The followers of Mr. 

 Spencer do not form a sect, because they 

 have no beliefs which they wish to ex- 

 empt from criticism or discussion, and 

 becauso they hold themselves at full lib- 



