360 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



Science will certainly neither ask for, nor receive, the aid of the 

 secular arm. It will trust to the much better and more powerful help 

 of that education in scientific truth and in the morals of assent which 

 is rendered as indispensable as it is inevitable by the permeation of 

 practical life with the products and ideas of science. But no one who 

 considers the present state of even the most developed countries can 

 doubt that the scientific light that has come into the world will for a 

 long time have to shine in the midst of darkness. The urban popula- 

 tions, driven into contact with science by trade and manufacture, will 

 more and more receive it, while the pagani will lag behind. Let us 

 hope that no Julian may arise among them to head a forlorn hope 

 against the enevitable. Whatever happens. Science may bide her time 

 in patience and in confidence. 



But to return to my " Anonymous." I am afraid that if he repre- 

 sents any great party in the Church, the spirit of justice and reason- 

 ableness which animates the three bishops has as slender chance of 

 being imitated, on a large scale, as their common sense and their 

 courtesy. For, not contented with misrepresenting science on its 

 speculative side, " Anonymous " attacks its morality. 



For two whole years investigations and conolusi<.>ns ■which would upset the 

 theories of Darwin on the formation of coral islands were actually suppressed, 

 and that by the advice even of those who accepted them, for fear of upsetting 

 the faith and disturbing the judgment formed by the multitude on the scientific 

 character — the infallibility — of the great master! 



So far as I know anything about the matters which are here referred 

 to, the part of this passage which I have italicized is absolutely untrue. 

 I believe that I am intimately acquainted with all Mr. Darwin's im- 

 mediate scientific friends ; and I say that no one of them, nor any 

 other man of science known to me, ever could, or would, have given 

 such advice to any one — if for no other reason than that, with the 

 example of the most candid and patient listener to objections that ever 

 lived, fresh in their memories, they could not so grossly have at once 

 violated their highest duty and dishonored their friend. 



The charge thus brought by " Anonymous " affects the honor and 

 the probity of men of science ; if it is true, we have forfeited all 

 claim to the confidence of the general public. In my belief it is 

 utterly false, and its real effect will bo to discredit those who are 

 responsible for it. As is the way with slanders, it has grown by 

 repetition. " Anonymous " is responsible for the peculiarly offensive 

 form which it has taken in his hands ; but he is not responsible for 

 originating it. He has evidently been inspired by an article entitled, 

 " A Great Lesson," published in the September number of this Re- 

 view.* Truly it is "'a great lesson," but not quite in the sense intend- 

 ed by the giver thereof. 



* Sec "The Popular Science Monthly" for December, ISG^. 



