72J 



POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



gditotr's SabXje. 



SCIENCE AST) DOOM A. 



AFTER many uncomfortable 

 - turnings in his narrow theo- 

 logical quarters, the eminent biolo- 

 gist. Professor St. George Mivart, 

 seems to have made up his mind 

 that he may as well, before he dies, 

 know what it is to enjoy the air 

 of liberty. For many years he 

 has been pining for this, and al- 

 most inviting the authorities of 

 the Church to give him his pass- 

 ports. The Church was not anx- 

 ious, however, to quarrel with a 

 man of recognized ability and wide 

 knowledge, and therefore writings 

 which might well have been ex- 

 pected to give serious umbrage were 

 allowed to pass unnoticed. The 

 professor then made a most auda- 

 cious raid upon the venerable doc- 

 trine that there remains for the ma- 

 jority of mankind a place of unut- 

 terable and eternal misery. He ven- 

 tured to speak of The Happiness in 

 Hell, maintaining that, while the 

 inhabitants of that abode would al- 

 ways have a profound and harrow- 

 ing sense of having missed the su- 

 preme happiness of heaven, they 

 would still be able to occupy them- 

 selves in a variety of ways which 

 would give them a certain amount 

 of happiness, just as in this world 

 a man may carry a profoi;nd sorrow 

 in his heart and yet, under the stim- 

 ulus of business or society or intel- 

 lectual study, have his attention 

 happily diverted for many hours 

 every day. At this point the au- 

 thorities drew the line. It is re- 

 lated of an old Scotch lady that, 

 referring to the Universalists, she 

 said, " Those people say that all 

 men will be saved at .last, but we 

 hope for better things." Whether 

 this was the point of view of the 

 ecclesiastical powers or not, certain 



it is that they refused to sanction 

 the notion of any happiness, of how- 

 soever humble an order, in the abode 

 of gloom, and gave a peremptory 

 order to the professor to take it all 

 back. "Well, he took it back as a 

 matter of submission to those whom 

 he regarded as his lawful spiritual 

 guides, but the submission did not 

 give him rest. If ecclesiastical au- 

 thority was entitled to respect on 

 one side, science was urging even 

 stronger claims on the other. In 

 August last, as we now learn, the 

 professor wrote to the Prefect of 

 the Sacred Congregation of the 

 Index, explaining how he wished 

 his submission to be understood, 

 and as he and the prefect could not 

 come to an agreement about it, he 

 withdrew the submission altogether. 

 Then he resolved to relieve his 

 mind. It took two articles in two 

 separate magazines to do it — one in 

 the Fortnightly and one in the 

 Nineteenth Century — but then it 

 was done in a manner admitting of 

 no Recall. No sooner had these 

 articles appeared than Cardinal 

 Vaughan drew up an iron-clad dec- 

 laration affirming the falsity of 

 every position the writer had taken, 

 and required him to sign it. Too 

 late ! The biologist and evolution- 

 ist in Professor Mivart had finally 

 trivimphed over the theologian, and 

 he met the cardinal's demand with 

 a flat refusal. Thereupon his Emi- 

 nence issued an order excluding the 

 recalcitrant savant fi'om the sacra- 

 ments of the Church. 



Mr. Mivart now knows where he 

 is. He occupies the broad ground 

 of scientific truth. He breathes the 

 free air of intellectual and moral 

 liberty. He still professes loyalty 

 to the Church according to his own 

 conception of it, but he will no 



