3 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of a century would be replaced that is about all. During the few 

 moments while the body was passing through the sun's atmosphere, 

 there might be, and probably would be, phenomena of great interest 

 and beauty to those who were on the watch ; but it is very doubtful 

 whether people generally would know anything about the occurrence 

 until they read of it in the papers. 



4 



SCIENTIFIC PHILANTHKOPY.* 



By ALFRED EOUILLEE. 



THE questions relating to public relief, population, and natural 

 selection are so inseparable that, in our age, thought has been 

 logically conducted from one to another of them, and has been led 

 to important discoveries. It was the problem of public relief, and the 

 observation of the effects produced by the poor-rates, that inspired 

 Malthus to compose his " Law of Population " ; it was the law of 

 population, in turn, that led Darwin to the discovery, first, of the law 

 of the " struggle for existence," and afterward of that of " natural 

 selection." We may say, then (and the fact is worthy of remark), 

 that it was a social and economical problem that provoked one of the 

 greatest revolutions in natural history. Even before Darwin, Mr. 

 Spencer, by studying m his " Social Statics " the influence of philan- 

 thropy on the movement of population, upon the artificial multiplica- 

 tion of the feeble in body or mind, and upon the deterioration of the 

 race, had shown how vital competition might produce, by means of 

 selection and elimination, sometimes progress, sometimes decadence, 

 of a species. He thus anticipated Darwin ; but he did not perceive, as 

 Darwin did, the capital fact of the divergence from the primitive 

 type which results from natural selection among living beings, and 

 produces the final variation of species. Nevertheless, natural science 

 and social science have shown an intimate connection in this respect, 

 which exists no less in all the other problems. Thus, we are not able 

 from this point to separate these two sciences. To reduce sociology 

 to the category of moral, economical, and political sciences is to con- 

 demn it to remain an abstraction, and to treat its problems incom- 

 pletely by ignoring essential data ; the legist, the economist, and the 

 politician, who take no account of the laws of biology, are like a doc- 

 tor who is not acquainted with the structure or the functions of the 

 organs, or, to use Mr. Spencer's comparison, resemble a blacksmith who 

 would work in iron without knowing anything of its properties. We 

 must, therefore, approve of labors which, like those of Messrs. Spen- 



* Translated for " The Popular Science Monthly," from the " Revue des Deux 

 Mondes." 



