562 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



regard to the constitution of the natural world was a sufficient foundation 

 for the most highly elaborated beliefs; and the "yarns," if we may so 

 designate them, which were told about the dragon, the unicorn, the levia- 

 than, and one or two other unique animals mentioned in the Bible showed 

 plainly that the imagination of our ancestors was in a state of high activity, 

 whatever may have been the case with their logical faculties. The gap 

 between such a condition of mind and that which prevails among the edu- 

 cated classes of our own day is vast; but Dr. White enables us to see by 

 what successive accretions of knowledge a pathway was made from one to 

 the other. To-day the idea of development is supreme, and that of crea- 

 tion, which was the only one our ancestors could entertain, has become 

 almost an intellectual impossibility. In other words, we do not know how to 

 go about thinking of creation, while familiarity with the fact of develop- 

 ment, as it takes place in many ways before our eyes, has caused us to 

 regard it as the typical and characteristic process by which all the con- 

 structive work of Nature is wrought. 



The second chapter deals with the progress of thought on the subject of 

 geography, including the form and size of the earth and the once much- 

 vexed question of the antipodes. The third chapter takes up the subject of 

 astronomy and gives a deeply interesting account of the struggle for the 

 establishment of the Copernican system. Dr. White makes it clear that 

 the opposition to the true view of the universe was almost if not quite as 

 keen on the part of Protestant as of Catholic churchmen. Luther is quoted 

 as saying: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show 

 that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and 

 the moon. . . . This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy ; 

 but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, 

 and not the earth." Melanchthon argued in the same strain, and Calvin 

 asked who would dare " to place the authority of Copernicus above that of 

 the Holy Spirit ? " In many universities, we are told, as late as the end of 

 the seventeenth century, " professors were forced to take an oath not to 

 hold the Pythagorean — that is, the Copernican — idea as to the movement of 

 the heavenly bodies. " University authorities used to make it their boast 

 in those days that such pernicious doctrines had no place in their system of 

 teaching, just as university authorities in our own day — it is oui* author 

 who draws the parallel— sometimes boast that they discourage the reading 

 of Mill, Spencer, and Darwin. 



Further chapters are entitled From Genesis to Geology, Antiquity of 

 Man, Fall of Man and Anthropology, Magic to Chemistry, Miracles to Medi- 

 cine, Babel to Philology, etc., and all are replete with important informa- 

 tion interestingly presented. Considered alone as a popular presentation 

 of modern views upon the great scientific questions of the day, the work de- 

 serves to be widely read ; but its value is greatly increased by the light which 

 it sheds upon the development of opinion and the cleai'ness with which it 

 establishes the contrast between the fruitful methods of science and the un- 

 fruitful ones of theology in the domain of nature. Finally, it is, as we 

 have already hinted, written in a large, tolerant, and sympathetic spirit, 

 suggesting a mind raised altogether above petty prejudices and narrow 

 enmities. It is a pleasure to us to think that the greater part of the mat- 

 ter contained in the work was first given to the public in the pages of the 

 Popular Science Monthly. 



