602 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Homeric epic have a reality all their own, and are a delight and a 

 glory now, as they have ever been before. The Bible also is a clas- 

 sical book. It is the classical book of noble ethical sentiment. In it 

 the- mortal fear, the overflowing hope, the quivering longings of the 

 human soul toward the better and the best, have found their first, 

 their freshest, their fittest utterance. In this respect it can never be 

 superseded. 



To Greek philosophy we owe the evolution of the logical catego- 

 ries; to Hebrew prophecy, the pure canon of moral principle and ac- 

 tion. That this, result was the outcome of a long process of suffering 

 and struggle cannot diminish its value in our estimation. When 

 we compare the degrading offices of the Hebrew religion in the days 

 of the judges with the lofty aspirations of the second Isaiah, when 

 we remember the utter abyss of moral abasement from which the 

 nobler spirits of the Hebrews rose to the free summits of prophecy, 

 our confidence in the divine possibilities of the human soul is rein- 

 vigorated, our emulation is kindled, and from the great things already 

 accomplished we gather the cheering promise of the greater things 

 that are yet to come. It is in this moral incentive that the practical 

 value of the evolutionary theory chiefly lies. 1 



PEESENT STATUS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE REPLY 



TO A CPJTIC. 



By KOBEKT S. HAMILTON. 



WHEN a periodical of such wide circulation and deservedly high 

 reputation as The Popular Science Monthly disparages an 

 author by its criticism, silence on his part might reasonably be con- 

 strued into acquiescence in its justness. It is, therefore, hoped that 

 this reply to a criticism on the late work, published by H. L. Hinton 

 & Co., on " The Present Status of Social Science," which appeared in 

 that monthly for May, 1874, will not be denied a place in the same 

 columns that allowed the criticism. 



The main accusation preferred against the book and it is almost 

 the only one is, that it is " an old book," and of " an antiquated 

 character." 



It may not be out of place here to remind our critic that some of the 



1 Most aptly has this thought been expressed in the lines with which Goethe wel- 

 comed the appearance of F. A. Wolfs "Prolegomena:" 



" Erst die Gcsundheit des Mamies, der, endlich votn Namen Homeroa 

 Kiilm uns befrelend, una auch fiihrt in die vollere Bahn. 

 Denn wer wagte mit GOttern den Kampf? und wer rait dem Einen? 

 Doch Homeride zu seyn, auch nur als letzter, 1st achOn." 



The Elegy of Hermann und Dorothea. 



