575 408 [December 



VI 



Professor Schiller on Darwinism and Design 



I SUPPOSE that it must, on the whole, be reckoned as an encour- 

 aging sign of gradual advancement that, from time to time, 

 articles dealing with physical science are allowed to appear in the 

 monthly Reviews ; for the appearance of such articles indicates that 

 the editors of these strictly commercially-conducted Reviews can 

 safely reckon upon a tolerable percentage of their readers being 

 interested in physical science. 



This apparent gradual spread of an interest in physical science 

 is comforting ; and it is good that the huge section of the public, 

 who never by any chance read scientific books or scientific periodi- 

 cals, should yet, through the medium of the Revieivs, acquire some 

 slight taste for physical science and some trifling knowledge of 

 recent advances therein. From this standpoint, then, the practice of 

 inserting scientific articles in the lay Reviews is much to be com- 

 mended ; but it is not to be denied that there are compensating dis- 

 advantages, and these are due to two factors. 



In the first place, the editors of these Reviews, being usually — 

 like most other " well-educated " Englishmen — utterly ignorant of 

 physical science, are hopelessly unable to estimate for themselves 

 the value of any scientific article submitted to them, and are thus 

 entirely incapacitated from exercising any truly editorial functions 

 with regard to such articles ; and, in the second place, all these 

 Reviews are conducted upon strictly commercial principles, being- 

 regarded primarily as money-making machines, and only secondarily 

 as organs of education and enlightenment. Both these factors con- 

 spire to bring about one and the same result, viz., that the editors 

 taboo all articles not signed by a big name — which' is at once the 

 guarantee of profit to their purses and of safety to their ignorance — 

 and are naturally tempted to exclude controversial replies. Usually 

 their assiduous worship of big names safeguards them from any 

 fiasco ; but now and then there creeps into a Review an article which 

 betrays only too signally the fact that it was entirely unintelligible 

 to the " editor," and that that omnipotent functionary was education- 

 ally disqualified from perceiving the extraordinary nature of the 

 statements and arguments appearing in his Re/view. 



To this category seems to belong the article on Darwinism and 

 Design, contributed by Professor F. C. S. Schiller to the Contemporary 



