EDITOR'S TABLE. 



269 



United States as the sole country claim- 

 ing to be civilized which disregards the 

 proprietary rights of foreigu authors. 

 2. Greatly extending and improving the 

 field for native authorship. 3. As the 

 result "of the two preceding benefits, 

 raising the moral and intellectual tone 

 more or less of the whole people. "We 

 may add, as a fourth benefit, the plac- 

 ing of the whole publishing trade of 

 the country on a sounder footing. 



The Popular Science Monthly has, 

 fri)m the first, placed itself on the right 

 side of this question by consistently 

 contending for the principle of interna- 

 tional copyright, and that without any 

 such reserves in regard to magazine 

 literature as some members of Congress 

 are now disposed to make, and such as 

 it might be supposed to be in the inter- 

 est of a periodical reprinting more or 

 less from foreign sources might be 

 thought to favor. Our interest in the 

 subject, therefore, is not new-born, but 

 is merely the continuation of that we 

 have both felt and expressed whenever 

 the question has been prominently be- 

 fore the pubHc. In supporting the bill 

 now before Congress, we do not wish to 

 be understood as claiming that it is a 

 perfect measure, or that it may not, aft- 

 er some experience of its working, be 

 found to need amendment. All that can 

 fairly be asked of a new law is that it 

 should affirm a sound principle, and 

 should provide the means for carrying 

 that principle into more or less effective 

 and satisfactory operation. This, how- 

 ever, may be claimed for the Copyright 

 Bill — that it is no hole or corner meas- 

 ure, no product of selfish machinations 

 against the general interest, but that all 

 it aims at is for the public good. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

 Matthew Arnold, though pre-emi- 

 nently a man of letters, was one who in 

 many points occupied common ground 

 with the men of science. He had that 

 openness of spirit and that constant 

 desire to search out causes which are 



among the best characteristics of the 

 scientific temper. He had turned aside 

 as completely from catastrophism in 

 human history as modern geologists 

 have done in regard to the physical 

 history of the globe, or modern biolo- 

 gists in regard to the development of 

 life. He may at times have weaved 

 rather fanciful theories of his own, but 

 he was always willing to bring them to 

 the tests of fact and logic. Though not 

 lacking in self-confidence, he was far 

 from being dogmatic, and be invariably 

 treated opponents not only with re- 

 spect, but with unfailing kindliness. 

 He had, perhaps, an inadequate appre- 

 ciation of the value of certain lines of 

 scientific investigation, and, converse- 

 ly, he may have formed an exaggerated 

 estimate of the value of the literary ele- 

 ment in education ; but every man must 

 be allowed, as the French say, to preach 

 his own saint ; and Matthew Arnold's 

 preaching had always something in- 

 structive in it. No man, it is almost 

 needless to say, could write more inter- 

 estingly than he ; and this was doubt- 

 less because, with his fine gifts, he took 

 life seriously, and apjdied his mind ear- 

 nestly to some of its greatest problems. 

 Allowing for all deficiencies and for a 

 few mannerisms, he was a sound and 

 wholesome thinker, and a useful man 

 in his generation. There can be no 

 doubt that, in his own way, he power- 

 fully aided the great scientific move- 

 ment of the age. No mind that fell un- 

 der Matthew Arnold^s influence could 

 be closed against scientific conceptions, 

 or could to any serious extent under- 

 value the work of science ; and many 

 must have owed to his vivacious pen 

 their first realization of the extent to 

 which modern thought had invaded 

 and dismantled the fortresses of ancient 

 prejudice. By his poetry, too, he suc- 

 ceeded, perhaps without intending it, 

 in showing that modern thought is not 

 destitute of the instinct for beauty, and 

 that it lends itself in an especial man- 

 ner to the delineation of the beauty of 

 righteousness. We are not sure that 



