392 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



acknowledged benefits. As Prof. Faw- 

 cett justly remarks : 



"Eacb fresh extension of the principles 

 of centralization or of industrial protection 

 may be regarded as directly promoting the 

 growth of socialistic ideas, A people who 

 from their earliest childhood are accustomed 

 to believe that state management is better 

 than individual effort, will not unnaturally 

 think that, if they can place themselves in a 

 position to control the state, they will then 

 possess a power which will enable them to 

 redress every grievance from which they are 

 suffering, and to remedy everything which 

 they may regard as unsatisfactory in their 

 condition." 



No doubt these radical communistic 

 claims are too wild and ridiculous to 

 be entertained by intelligent and sober- 

 minded people, but many people are 

 neither intelligent nor sober-minded. 

 There is of course no danger that their 

 programme will be carried out, but 

 grave mischief cannot fail to result 

 from the diffusion of such poisonous 

 and destructive notions, and we are 

 now compelled to consider to what ex- 

 tent Government is not itself charge- 

 able with having fostered and encour- 

 aged them. At any rate, the honest 

 advocates of the protective system may 

 be led to consider whether it is not pro- 

 ductive of an order of evil consequences 

 not foreseen by the politicians who have 

 maintained it. 



THE RELIGIOUS RECOGNITION OF 



NATURE. 



Peof. Joseph Hexrt was a religious 

 man as well as a man of science. He 

 wrote a brief letter to a friend just be- 

 fore his death, suggesting at its close 

 that it is in the "line of theological 

 speculation ; " and being an eminent 

 scientist, his religious views are so 

 prized by religious people that this let- 

 ter has been printed as a tract for gra- 

 tuitous distribution, and is to be had at 

 the American Tract Society, 150 Nassau 

 Street, New York. It is an encouraging 

 sign of the times to see devout people 

 showing in this way aa increasing ap- 



preciation of the importance of the be- 

 liefs of scientific men concerning theo- 

 logical matters. We heartily commend 

 this practice, for if theological discords 

 are ever to come to an end it must be 

 by the substitution of scientific ideas 

 for dogmatic creeds. The sects will ul- 

 timately harmonize just in proportion 

 as they absorb scientific truth. 



Prof. Henry did not live to revise 

 his letter (usually a careful habit with 

 him), and it therefore has the interest 

 and value of a spontaneous private ex- 

 pression of his convictions, and it was 

 made, he says, " without stopping to in- 

 quire whether what I have written may 

 be logical or orthodox." "With this can- 

 did carelessness about his orthodoxy we 

 entirely sympathize, and are here in- 

 terested in this unconstrained avowal 

 of his religious views because of their 

 relation to science. 



In the true scientific spirit and meth- 

 od he begins by looking out upon Na- 

 ture and regarding it as presenting 

 problems that require to be solved. 

 Largely viewed, we are in the midst of 

 its mighty movement; we are a part 

 of it; we emerge and quickly disap- 

 pear — what view shall we take of it ? 

 on what hypothesis explain it ? Among 

 the various theories of the universe he 

 accepts the theistic theory as the " sim- 

 plest conception," and giving the most 

 satisfactory account of things. His so- 

 lution is that the order of the world is 

 originated and directed by a Divine Be- 

 ing who has made man with a capacity 

 of understanding the universe by means 

 of science. As his own statement is 

 important, we quote his words : 



" "We live in a universe of change : noth- 

 ing remains the same from one moment till 

 another, and each moment of recorded time 

 has its separate history. We are carried on 

 by the ever-changing events in the line of 

 our destiny, and at the end of the year we 

 are always at a .lonsideraible distance from 

 the point of its beginning. How short the 

 space between the two cardinal points of an 

 earthly career, the point of birth and that of 

 death ; and yet what a universe of wonders 

 are presented to us in our rapid flight 



