86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in America than in England, and quite as safely. In fact, I had 

 reason to believe that the warmth of my own welcome in America 

 was in no small degree due to the fact that, having first proved the 

 justice of my views, I had not been afraid to maintain them publicly 

 against the powers that were until the proper course was adopted. 



One other point remains to be noticed, the influence, namely, of 

 religious scruples upon scientific progress and research in America. 

 Here I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed. I expected to 

 find America a long way in advance of England. But with some 

 noteworthy exceptions, especially in the West, America seems to me 

 to be behind England in this respect. It is only here and there, in 

 England in the Boeotian corners, so to speak, of this country that 

 the community opposes itself to advanced scientific ideas to the same 

 extent as in some of the leading cities of the United States. This is 

 partly due to two opposite influences : the Puritan element of the 

 American population on the one hand, and the Roman Catholic ele- 

 ment on the other. Progress, however, is being steadily made in this 

 as in other matters. Indeed, it has been rather because America began 

 later to bestir itself in the encouragement of free search after truth 

 that she is at present behind England in this respect. Judging from ex- 

 perience in other matters, she will move rapidly now her progress has 

 begun, and will soon occupy the position to be expected from the 

 natural freedom and independence of the American mind. It need 

 hardly be said that in America, as in Europe, such contest as arises 

 from time to time between religion and science has its origin entirely 

 from the side of religion. There as here religion (so called) attacks 

 and denounces discoveries inconsistent with the views which the 

 orthodox had been accustomed to advocate; and there as here, when 

 there as no longer any choice, the orthodox quietly accept these dis- 

 coveries as established facts, expressing a naive astonishment that 

 they should ever have been thought in the least degree inconsistent 

 with received opinions. Advance-sheets of Popular Science Review. 







IS THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS SUFFICIENT? 



By Dk. JAMES McCOSH, 



PRESIDENT OF PEIKCETON OOtlEQE. 



THIS paper has been occasioned by the lectures of a distinguished 

 Englishman who has visited this country; but I am to keep very 

 much to my general subject, and not enter upon a minute criticism of 

 Prof. Huxley. In these lectures he has abstained from entering on 

 those exciting topics bearing on materialism and religion, which he has 

 discussed so freely in Edinburgh and in Belfast, and in his published 

 writings. So far the hopes of unbelievers in Scripture, and the fears 



