268 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



A SIGNIFICANT ANALOGY. 

 Me9»r». Editors : 



WHEN President White wrote his "New 

 Chapters in the Warfare of tScience " 

 he could have had no idea that the same 

 issue of your magazine which contained the 

 first chapter on " The Doctrine of Comets " 

 would also contain a striking illustration by 

 another writer of a similar phase of the 

 same conflict which he has so graphically 

 portrayed. 



According to Mr. White, the foolish no- 

 tions and absurd superstitions which pre- 

 vailed for so many centuries in regard to 

 comets were due to the irregularity of their 

 movements and the indeterniinateness of 

 their orbit. As soon as astronomers had 

 calculated the orbit of a comet and foretold 

 the exact time in which it would appear, 

 "a true doctrine of comets" became pos- 

 sible and was accepted, at least, by the mass 

 of intelligent persons. 



Perhaps very few of your readers con- 

 nected this article on comets with the one 

 on " The Metaphysical Society " in your 

 October number. Yet the passages that I 

 am about to cite will, I think, bear me out 

 in holding that, even among the most intel- 

 ligent men of the present time, the same 

 kind of ignorance of the phenomena under 

 consideration leads to similar erroneous con- 

 clusions. 



The very interesting discussion on the 

 " Uniformity of Nature," by such represent- 

 ative men as Dr. Ward, Father Dalgairns, 

 Mr. Ruskin, and the Archbishop of West- 

 minster on the one side, and Professor Hux- 

 ley, Mr. Bagehot, and Sir James Stephen 

 on the other, at last reaches "no less 

 weighty a thinker " than Dr. Martineau. Af- 

 ter stating forcibly the philosophical rea- 

 sons which make a belief in the uniformity 

 of nature absolutely necessary, " so far as 

 nature is purely dynamic and so far as force 

 is measured by reason" (p. 817), he yet de- 

 clines to accept this when man's mental na- 

 ture is concerned. 



"Doubtless," he says, "it will be replied 

 that, as in the mind of man there is a free 

 spring of force which is as yet undetermined, 

 which is potential and not actual force, so 

 there is behind nature a free spring of force 

 which is as yet undetermined, which is po- 

 tential and not actual nature — in short, a 

 power above nature and capable of modi- 

 fying it; in other words, supernatural, and 

 that doctrine I should heartily accept. The 

 uniformity of nature is the tmiformity of 

 force, just as the uniformity of reasoning is 



the uniformity of thought. But just as the 

 indeterminateness of creative will stands be- 

 hind the determinateness of the orbit of 

 force, so the indeterminateness of creative 

 purpose stands behind the determinateness 

 of the orbit of thought or inference. I hold 

 that man is not wholly immersed in dynamic 

 laws, that, though our physical constitution is 

 subject to them, our mental constitution rises 

 above them into a world where free self- 

 determination is possible" (p. 817). Have 

 we not here, I ask, another case where " ir- 

 regularity of movement " and " indetermi- 

 nateness of the orbit " have produced confu- 

 sion of thought and caused thinkers to re- 

 gard as " free " that which, so far as we have 

 any positive knowledge at all, we know to 

 be determined. It would not be difficult to 

 show either that the superstition in regard 

 to " Free Will " has done even more harm 

 than the belief that the appearance of com- 

 ets betokened evil. 



President White's article furnishes such 

 an excellent answer to a pithy question put 

 by Dr. Ward near the close of the debate, 

 that I can not forbear to call attention to it. 

 " Is it not better," he asks, " to have a vul- 

 gar belief in God than to have a fine sus- 

 ceptibility to scientific methods ?" (p. 819). 



During the long ages of ignorance and 

 superstition to which Mr. White has called 

 attention there existed what Dr. Ward 

 wants — " a vulgar belief in God," and there 

 was but a very slight " susceptibility to sci- 

 entific methods." While it can not be said 

 that even now the tendency toward the lat- 

 ter is very strong, or that a vulgar belief in 

 the Deity has disappeared, yet I think it 

 will be generally admitted that there has 

 been some advance toward a recognition of 

 the merits of the scientific method and some 

 alteration in the beliefs about God ; and I 

 leave it to any competent and candid person 

 to say which of these times has been the 

 " better " for humanity. 



Yours truly, R. M. 



October 2, 18S5. 



COEPOEATIONS AND THEIE EMPLOYES. 

 Messrs. Editors : 



Dr. Barnard's well-timed paper calling 

 attention to the lack of direction of the 

 sympathy of corporation managers with 

 their employes deserves a more general 

 consideration than it will be likely to re- 

 ceive from them. As one directly interested 

 in the labor problem, I wish to thank him 

 for calling popular attention to the near- 

 est way to mitigate some of the asperities 



