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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hopeful sign, and who look forward to 

 the day when government will seize 

 upon all the great lines of industry and 

 forever hreak the power of private en- 

 terprise ; hut few intelligent persons in 

 this country are of this turn of mind. 

 We would therefore say to those who 

 wish to preserve upon this coutinent a 

 society alive in all its parts and full of 

 individual initiative and resource, to 

 heware how they give heed to the 

 seductive doctrine that government 

 should undertake whatever it can do 

 " better " than private individuals. We 

 might pay too dear for having our gar- 

 den-walks rolled by government rollers, 

 and too dear in many other ways for 

 the alleged benefits of official rule. 



BEECHER ON EVOLUTION. 



The Eev. Henry Ward Beecher has 

 worthily crowned his splendid career 

 as a liberal religious reformer by an- 

 nouncing and entering upon a series of 

 discourses to his congregation in expo- 

 sition and defense of the doctrine of 

 evolution in its religious aspects and 

 hearings. The taking of this noble 

 stand in a formal way at the present 

 time is undoubtedly the most moment- 

 ous act of his intellectual and profes- 

 sional life. At a time when most men 

 are worn out and ready to retire, when 

 enthusiasm is usually chilled and opin- 

 ions become hardened and unadaptive, 

 Mr, Beecher strikes into a new field 

 with the fire of youth, and takes the 

 leadership in a movement of religious 

 reform of quite incalculable moment. 

 He commits himself boldly and broadly 

 to the most comprehensive, far-reach- 

 ing, and revolutionary truth yet estab- 

 lished by science, and which carries 

 with it a total reconstruction of the 

 relations of science and religion ; and 

 this he does in opposition to the nar- 

 row-mindedness and dull indifference 

 of the community, and more especially 

 to the organized ignorance, the sacred 

 traditions, the inveterate prejudices, 



the bigotry and the intolerance of the 

 theological world. We confess to un- 

 affected admiration for the sagacity, 

 the independence, the courage, the loy- 

 alty to conscience and to truth, that 

 have prompted Mr. Beecher to take 

 this brave and significant step. 



Undoubtedly he has undertaken a 

 very difficult task, and he is aware that 

 he has not much child's play before 

 him. But there are important advan- 

 tages in his position ; and the first of 

 these is, his independence of religious 

 organizations : he has to reckon only 

 with his congregation. In various re- 

 spects, no doubt, his audience is but 

 poorly equipped to appreciate the value 

 of facts and the force of reasoning on 

 the subject of evolution. For it must 

 be remembered that the proof of that 

 great principle is not of a kind to be 

 given to an uninstrueted person at a 

 sitting. It is the diversity, and wide 

 concurrence, and cumulative confirma- 

 tion of the evidences that give the over- 

 whelming force of demonstration to the 

 theory. It must be assumed that Mr. 

 Beecher's congregation has not been 

 very well prepared in the philosophy 

 of evidence, any more than they are 

 familiar with the sciences from which 

 the proofs are derived. It consists of 

 bright, intelligent people, whose men- 

 tal cultivation has been chiefly in lit- 

 erature, politics, and theology; while 

 in proportion to their proficiency in 

 these will they rank low in science 

 knowing little of its facts and less of 

 its spirit and method. 



Nevertheless, Mr. Beecher's congre- 

 gation has had a very valuable and 

 important preparation, which will be 

 pretty sure to carry them with him in 

 the present movement. Evolution is 

 by no means a thing of yesterday with 

 Mr. Beecher; he has long been on the 

 road to it. The doctrine of progress 

 has been one of the favorite and most 

 powerful elements of his preaching for 

 a quarter of a century. It has been 

 the key to his theological philosophy, 



