6o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



but two per cent of the population, and that even this accommodation 

 was more than was needed. This fact is not due to the want of a deep 

 religious spirit among the North Germans : no one who has lived 

 among them can doubt the existence of such a spirit ; but it is due 

 mainly to the fact that, while the simple results of scientific in- 

 vestigation have filtered down among the people at large, the domi- 

 nant party in the Lutheran Church has steadily refused to recognize 

 this fact, and has persisted in imposing on Scripture the fetters of lit- 

 eral and dogmatic interpretation which Germany has largely out- 

 grown.* A similar danger threatens every other country in which 

 the clergy pursue a similar policy. No thinking man, whatever may 

 be his religious views, can fail to regret this. A thoughtful, reverent, 

 enlightened clergy is a great blessing to any country ; and anything 

 which undermines their legitimate work of leading men out of the 

 worship of material things to the consideration of that which is higher, 

 is a vast misfortune. 



But, before concluding this part of the subject, it may be instruct- 

 ive to note a few special attempts at truces or compromises, such as 

 always appear when the victory of any science becomes sure. Typical 

 among the latest of these may be mentioned the attempt of Carl von 

 Rauraer in 1819. With much pretension to scientific knowledge, but 

 with aspirations bounded by the limits of Prussian orthodoxy, he 

 made a labored attempt to produce a statement which, by its vague- 

 ness, haziness, and " depth," should obscure the real questions at issue. 

 This statement appeared in the shape of an argument, used by Ber- 

 trand and others in the previous century, to prove that fossil remains 

 of plants in the coal-measures had never existed as living plants, but 

 had been simply a " result of the development of imperfect plant em- 

 bryos" ; and the same misty theory w^as suggested to explain the ex- 

 istence of fossil animals without supposing the epochs and changes re- 

 quired by geological science. 



In 1837 Wagner sought to uphold this explanation ; but it was so 

 clearly a mere hollow phrase, unable to bear the weight of the facts 

 to be accounted for, that it was soon given up. 



Similar attempts were made throughout Europe, the most note- 

 worthy appearing in England. In 1853 was issued an anonymous 

 work, having as its title "A Brief and Complete Refutation of the 

 Anti-Scriptural Theory of Geologists " : the author reviewed an old 

 idea, but put a spark of life into it — this idea being that " all the or- 

 ganisms found in the depths of the earth were made on the first of the 

 six creative days, as models for the plants and animals to be created 

 on the third, fifth, and sixth days." f 



* For these statements regarding Germany the writer relics on his personal obserra- 

 tion as a student at the University of Berlin in 1856, as a traveler at various periods 

 afterward, and as Minister of the United States in 1879, 1880, and 1881. 



f See Zockler, vol. ii, p. 475. 



