CORRESP ONDENCE. 



105 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE SPIIEKE AND LIMITS OP SCIENCE. 

 To the Editor of the Popular Science Monthly: 



AS you have done my brief after-dinner 

 speech (a kind of performance that 

 usually perishes with the occasion) the 

 honor of an elaborate criticism, which I 

 think a little one-sided and unfair, I ask 

 the privilege to reply. 



You say that I used tbe occasion of the 

 Tyndall banquet " to give a lesson to the 

 scientific gentlemen present as to the proper 

 limit of their inquiries." But that is hard- 

 ly a just representation. Neither in matter 

 nor manner did I pretend " to instruct " any- 

 body; but, assuming that the Press, on 

 which I was invited to speak, was a kind 

 of universal reporter, I simply asked a few 

 questions of an audience so competent to 

 give the answer, as to the validity of cer- 

 tain speculative opinions confidently put 

 forth in the name of science. That the 

 mode of doing so was neither presumptuous 

 nor offensive, I infer from the cordial ap- 

 proval given to my remarks by eminent sci- 

 entific gentlemen, both at the time and 

 since. 



You seem to resent the speech as an im- 

 pertinence in saying that " it has ever been 

 a favorite occupation of outsiders to in- 

 struct the investigators of Nature where 

 they must stop," etc. But does Science set 

 up any pretension to the character of an 

 exclusive church ? It is true I am an out- 

 sider; i. e., I have made no discoveries in 

 science ; I have cultivated no special branch 

 of it as a pursuit ; all that I know of it I 

 have learned from others, by diligent though 

 somewhat desultory reading, for thirty years 

 past; but may I not, therefore, have an 

 opinion of what I am taught ? Is it te- 

 merity to endeavor to distinguish what is 

 real science from what is not, particular- 

 ly at a time when there is so much put 

 forth that is likely to confuse the careless 

 mind? 



Be that as it may, what I complain of is, 

 that you class me among the bigots, who 

 in every age have protested against the 



progress of knowledge, alleging that I pre- 

 sented myself as " the champion of imper- 

 illed faith," whereas my protest was merely 

 in behalf of true science against fahe. And, 

 in order to make out your case, you sup- 

 press all reference to the first part of my 

 speech, in which I uttered, as fully as the 

 occasion allowed, the highest estimations of 

 Science and my almost unbounded hopes of 

 its future. Permit me to revive what I said : 

 After hailing Science as the "King of the 

 Epoch," to which all other forms of intel- 

 lectual activity were doing homage, and a3 

 the "mighty Magician," that by its brill- 

 iant and fertile researches surpassed what- 

 ever the imagination had depicted in fable, 

 I continued : " Science is to me not only a 

 proof of man's intellectual superiority, and 

 the seal of his emancipation from the tyr- 

 anny of ignorance, but the pledge of an 

 unimaginable progress in the future. By 

 the beautiful uniformities of law, which it 

 discovers in Nature, it discharges the human 

 mind of those early superstitions which saw 

 a despot god in every bush, whose wanton 

 will paralyzed the free flight of our intel- 

 lect, and debauched our best affections. 

 Neither the tempests nor frowns of Nature 

 are terrible to us, now that we may bend 

 her most hostile forces into willing obe- 

 dience, and find her full, not of malice, but 

 of good-will. For, out of that benignity, 

 and our supremacy over it, will yet come a 

 power that will enable us to transform these 

 poverty-smitten, sordid, unjust, and crimi- 

 nal civilizations, into happy and harmonious 

 societies, when every man shall be glad in 

 the gladness of his fellows, and, for the first 

 time, feel the assurance of a universal Di- 

 vine paternity. Science, moreover, in wrest- 

 in" from Creation her final secrets, will fur- 

 nish to the philosophic mind the means of 

 a more effulgent and glorious solution of the 

 dark problems of life and destiny than it is 

 possible to reach by unaided conjecture. 

 She will prove what the spiritual insight of 

 the seers has only dimly discerned, that Na- 

 ture, which now seems so inscrutable to us, 

 so hard and unfeeling toward human hopes 



