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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



it. This man was made from the dust of the 

 ground by a deity, who walked about on the 

 earth, and had divine associates, jealous of the 

 man for sharing their privilege of knowing good 

 from evil, and fearful that he would gain that of 

 immortality also. The deity had taken a rib out 

 of the man, and made a woman of it. 



I do not see that we should mind the teaching 

 of these stories, so long as others are taught 

 along with them, such as that of the Chaldee god 

 Bel, who cut off his head, moistened the clay 

 with his blood, and then made men out of it ; or 

 of the gods of our own race — Odin,Yale, and Ve — 

 who walked about the earth until they found two 

 trees, one of which they made into a man, and 

 the other into a woman ; or of Deucalion and 

 Pyrrha, who threw stones over their heads, which 

 became men and women. As soon as ever they 

 can understand them they may be taught the 

 reasons why the first two stories are quite differ- 

 ent from the others, and, though contradictory, 

 both of them true ; as, for example, the nature 

 of the evidence which connects or disconnects the 

 stories with Moses, and which proves that Moses 

 could have known anything about the origin of 

 the world. But we ought not, I think, to allow 

 either of these stories to be taught to our chil- 

 dren as a known fact. It will be better to prepare 

 them that they may by-and-by understand the 

 attitude of the lover of truth toward these prob- 

 lems. 



" If you ask him whence is this ' matter' . . . 

 who or what divided it into molecules, and im- 

 pressed upon them this necessity of running into 

 organic forms, he has no answer. Science is mute 

 in reply to such questions. But, if the materialist 

 is confounded, and science is rendered dumb, who 

 else is prepared with an answer? Let us lower 

 our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest 

 and philosopher, one and all. 



" His " (the scientific man's) " refusal of the cre- 

 ative hypothesis is less an assertion of knowledge 

 than a protest against the assumption of knowledge 

 which must long, if not forever, lie beyond us, 

 and the claim to which is the source of perpetual 

 confusion upon earth." ' 



I do not propose to discuss here those difficult 

 questions which were raised by Haeckel and Na- 

 geli about the relation of body and mind ; because 

 I hope soon to have an opportunity of dealing 

 with them separately. But in regard to the 

 teaching in schools of abstract and general con- 

 clusions derived from this branch of science, still 

 so very imperfect, so much in the air, it seems to 

 me that Virchow has spoken with the utmost 

 1 Tyndall, " Fragments," pp. 421, 548. 



practical wisdom. The basis of it, indeed, the 

 one point of firm ground on which the structure 

 of mind-and-body lore can be built, is fully suited 

 for teaching, as Virchow himself has pointed out. 

 The theory of the eye, slowly elaborated from 

 Lionardo to Kepler, from Kepler to Helmholtz, 

 and the doctrine of perception founded upon it, 

 these supply a safe foundation for whatever more 

 may come. But the Plastidule-soul can take no 

 harm by waiting awhile, until we are a little more 

 clear about what we mean by it. 



And this same judgment applies necessarily to 

 another abstract and general conclusion from an 

 unproved doctrine about body and mind — the 

 conclusion that a man's consciousness survives 

 the decay of his body. Such a conclusion can be 

 at best, in the present state of knowledge, a hope, 

 a conjecture, an aspiration ; it can have no claim 

 to be regarded as a known fact. Those who hold 

 to it may think it highly probable, they may 

 strongly desire that it should be true, they may 

 eagerly expect that better evidence will shortly 

 be forthcoming ; but they cannot be justified in 

 teaching it to little children as a known fact. Of 

 such a doctrine, surely, if of any doctrine, we 

 ought to say : " Do not take this for established 

 truth; be prepared to find that it is otherwise; 

 only for the moment we are of opinion that it may 

 possibly be so." 



And in this case the reasons for such caution 

 are deeper and stronger than the merely intellect- 

 ual ones, because of the vast hold of this doctrine 

 upon the hearts, and its serious influence upon the 

 actions, of men. You, who teach it to your children, 

 do so from the highest of motives, because you be- 

 lieve that it will influence their character for good, 

 and strengthen them in the course of right con- 

 duct. But there are two things which you should 

 carefully consider. The first is, that by teaching 

 the doctrine too early you weaken its effect, be- 

 cause you teach it while it can be only half real- 

 ized, and so prevent it from being realized after- 

 ward. Dr. Martineau testifies to the greater power 

 of a belief in immortality gained by the believer 

 for himself, and strengthening a moral sense which 

 has been formed on a different basis. Teach your 

 children to do good and to eschew evil ; if in later 

 life they can find hope of an eternity of such action, 

 it will make them happier and may make them bet- 

 ter. But the experience of centuries condemns the 

 practice of teaching the doctrine to little children, 

 so as to make it familiar as an ill-understood con- 

 ception, to weaken the power it might have for 

 good, and to help the perversion of it to supersti- 

 tious uses. 



