5 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pid child can tell a piece of Boston brown-bread from a ginger-snap ; 

 but he cannot always tell whether his bread is spread with Orange 

 County butter or oleomargarine. 



Again, one man is color-blind, and in a knowledge of colors can 

 make little progress. As an engineer, he would mistake a green for 

 a red light ; as a paint-mixer, he would be a failure ; and, as a matcher 

 of dress-goods, he would be little troubled by the sweet creatures to 

 whom he belonged. Another man can distinguish not only the seven 

 colors of the rainbow, but many shades of each. The progress of 

 these two men in all knowledge resting upon color must differ widely. 

 As in this, so in all departments of education: the man who is skillful 

 in detecting differences holds the key to knowledge. 



3. Relation to Happiness. The wise and the good of all religions 

 and the philosophers of every school are puzzled over what they term 

 the evils of life. Assiiming the Creator to be wise, good, and omnip- 

 otent, they wonder that he should allow these evils. They cannot 

 understand the problem of pain and misery which meets them at 

 every turn, and importunes for a solution. Why should there be any 

 condition but happiness ? 



The philosophers best satisfied with the present order of things are 

 those whom I shall name the protoplasmics. Denying the existence 

 .of a personal God, and falling back upon protoplasm as a substitute, 

 they think that, taking into account the humble character of their 

 protoplasmic god, he has done remarkably well. They are therefore 

 very hopeful in their evolution theory, and in this respect have the 

 advantage of their more orthodox brethren. They look upon creation 

 with much the same feeling as that with which we look upon the first 

 house built from cellar-drain to chimney-top by a self-made artisan. 

 As a house pure and simple, it may be a failure, but as a self-made 

 artisan's first attempt it is a wonderful success. 



The great army of reformers, each in his way anxious to show 

 himself the savior of the world, is but another proof of this widely- 

 spread belief that the world is in a very bad fix. 



That this problem of evil is as old as the race is shown in the 

 golden-age idea, whether it comes up in the Hebrew religion with its 

 Garden of Eden, or in the mythology of the Greeks and the Komans. 

 The explanation is, perhaps, this : Man clothes his god with the high- 

 est attributes he finds in himself. These qualities he magnifies, and 

 joins to them infinite power. Seeing that the world is evil, and, con- 

 scious of evil tendencies in himself, he finds his way out of the dilem- 

 ma by asserting that there w r as once a golden age, the condition of 

 the universe as it came from the hand of its Maker, and that all the 

 evil that has crept into it has come from man alone. Thus he solves 

 the problem of evil, and saves the character of his god. We must 

 admit that the theory shows a good degree of charity, humility, and 

 losnc. It would be a still better scheme if in it there could be found 



