49 6 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to it. Any infidel book that had gone 

 as far toward extirpating the miracu- 

 lous from Christianity would have been 

 pitched into the flames as blasphemous 

 by every devout believer. The grand 

 central miracle of Christianity, among 

 all orthodox people held as a belief too 

 sacred to be approached in a rationalis- 

 tic way, is the supernatural genesis of 

 its divine founder. And yet this rev- 

 erend biologist of Boston attacks the 

 subject with the microscope, quotes 

 Haeckel to prove that bees multiply 

 without the intervention of the male, 

 claims that this principle "extends to 

 the higher forms of life," and, "in the 

 presence of Almighty God," suggests 

 that Christ may have originated in the 

 same natural way. He even thinks 

 that if this fact of parthenogenesis in 

 natural history had been sufficiently 

 known it would have been potent in 

 saving men from skepticism by reliev- 

 ing their perplexities respecting the 

 parentage of the Saviour, and he cites 

 a conspicuous illustration, as follows : 

 " When a great soul like the tender 

 spirit of our sainted Lincoln, in his ear- 

 ly days, with little knowledge, but with 

 great thoughtf ulness, was troubled with 

 this difficulty, and almost thrown into 

 infidelity by not knowing that the law 

 that there must be two parents is not 

 universal, I am willing to allude, even 

 in such a presence as this, to the latest 

 science concerning miraculous concep- 

 tion." " The latest science ! " Perhaps 

 Mr. Lincoln, after all, with his " little 

 knowledge," was not so ignorant as 

 our biological lecturer, who seems not 

 to know that the Swiss naturalist, Bon- 

 net, had established asexual multiplica- 

 tion, in the case of plant-lice, three- 

 quarters of a century before Lincoln 

 was born. 



AVe must not, however, expect too 

 much, and are glad of any earnest sci- 

 entific discussion in theological quar- 

 ters. A book from a clergyman, bearing 

 the title of " Biology," has not only 

 the commendable merit of novelty, but 



it is an encouraging sign of the times, 

 and a promising precedent for the fu- 

 ture. Nor should we be too exacting in 

 regard to the quality of first efforts, as 

 theology is certainly not the best prepa- 

 ration for biology. Yet when a Chris- 

 tian preacher takes up the science, and 

 we allow for the imperfections of treat- 

 ment to be naturally expected of an 

 inquirer in an unfamiliar region, we are 

 still entitled to demand candor, fair- 

 ness, and conscientious painstaking 

 honesty of statement. Though we may 

 not get intelligence, we ought, at least, 

 to have common morality. We propose 

 briefly to test Mr. Cook's book by this 

 very moderate standard, and will take 

 his first position as a sample. We shall 

 thus be enabled not only to get a good 

 measure of the claims of his work, but 

 to correct a popular misapprehension 

 of some consequence. 



It is generally known that Prof. 

 Huxley, a few years ago, examined a 

 substance brought up from the sea- 

 bottom, and announced it as a newly- 

 discovered form of protoplasm, to 

 which he gave the name of Bathyoius ; 

 and it is currently supposed that he af- 

 terward abandoned this view as erro- 

 neous. Mr. Cook begins his biology 

 with an account of this matter. Its 

 first sentence is as follows: "In 1868 

 Prof. Huxley, in an elaborate paper in 

 the Microscopical Journal, announced 

 his belief that the gelatinous substance 

 found in the ooze of the beds of the 

 deep seas is a sheet of living matter, 

 extending around the globe." We have 

 carefully read that article, and have 

 found no such statement, and nothing 

 equivalent to it, there. Dr. A. P. Pea- 

 body, of Harvard University, reviewing 

 the book we are now considering, says 

 that "Mr. Cook's reasonings are based 

 in no instance on his own statement of 

 physical or scientific truth or fact ; but 

 always on the expressly-quoted words of 

 writers of universally admitted author- 

 ity." This is contradicted by the very 

 first utterance of Mr. Cook, in which 



