EDITOR'S TABLE. 



241 



witli which Dr. Draper deals, such an inter- 

 pretation of religion had not been reached, 

 and that it is very far from being arrived at 

 at the present time. Dr. Draper has been 

 reproached for not defining religion ; had 

 he done so, and had his definition described 

 that which has passed under the name of 

 religion, and been held as religion, genera- 

 tion after generation, his definition would 

 have been at once repudiated by the theo- 

 logical party. We said that those who 

 agree in demanding a definition of religion 

 from Dr. Draper, and condemn his book as 

 treating of an illusive conflict because he 

 does not furnish it, cannot themselves agree 

 upon the definition they profess to so much 

 desire. Does Dr. Deems accept Mr. Fiske's 

 definition? And if there is one definition, 

 clear and complete, which all men can 

 adopt, why does he bring us two, and 

 which are we to accept ? They are cer- 

 tainly not identical, for one makes it con- 

 sist in a special relation of man to God, 

 and the other in charity and moral purity. 

 Dr. Deems defines religion as " loving obe- 

 dience to God's will ; " but if the obedience 

 is inspired by Calvinistic fear, is it religion 

 or not? Loving obedience to God's will 

 but how ascertained ? Dr. Deems may say, 

 with broad liberality, either by the study of 

 God's printed word, or by the study of his 

 living works ; but can he insure us an agree- 

 ment among all parties upon this basis ? 

 From the doctor's position, that religious 

 people disagree among each other on ac- 

 count of their science, we respectfully dis- 

 sent. Science is not an agency of discord, 

 but of concord. There are undoubtedly 

 disagreements in science, for its nature is 

 progressive, and diversities of view are in- 



evitably incident to its imperfect stages. 

 Yet the great law of scientific thought is 

 that, with the progress of investigation, 

 there is ever a tendency to wider agreement, 

 until its truths at length become established 

 and universally accepted. Throughout civil- 

 ization it is in science, and, we might almost 

 say, in science alone, that men are brought 

 into essential agreement. Through the pow- 

 er it has conferred over the elements of Na- 

 ture have come the marvels of modern in- 

 ternational communication and intercourse ; 

 and through the truths it has established in 

 the domain of experience has come a body 

 of common belief, which men of all lan- 

 guages, religions, and nationalities, can ac- 

 cept, so that we must regard science as in 

 fact the predominant unifying agency of the 

 world. The reason is, that it deals with the 

 order of Nature, which is constant and ever 

 open to observation and research. New 

 questions are, of course, constantly arising 

 in science, upon which there are at first 

 wide contrasts of opinion, but the history of 

 science abundantly shows, either that such 

 questions are gradually cleared up, or, if this 

 is found to be impossible if the truth can- 

 not be determined about them then there 

 comes agreement in this, and they are 

 finally put aside as insoluble, and therefore 

 questions with which science has no legiti- 

 mate concern. Conflicting views now pre- 

 vail on the problems of the origin of life 

 and the nature of life, and time alone can 

 determine what will be the issue of these 

 inquiries ; but^we submit that these diver- 

 sities of opinion are of a quite different 

 kind from those between the Unitarian and 

 the Trinitarian the Universalist and the 

 Perditionist. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



WHO SHALL STUDY THE BABIES! 



THE reader's attention will be ar- 

 rested by the novelty of our first 

 irticle, by a distinguished literary 

 Frenchman, giving the result of his 

 )bservations on the progress of an in- 

 ant in learning to talk. We confess 

 some mortification at seeing the 

 lame of a man at the head of such a 

 VOL. ix. 16 



discussion. Not that the dignity of 

 M. Taine is at all compromised, for he 

 never undertook a more important or a 

 more distinguished task than critically 

 noting the steps of mental evolution in 

 a baby. Nevertheless, this would seem 

 to be preeminently the proper work of 

 woman a work to which we might 

 infer she would be drawn by her feel- 



