575 408 [December 
VI 
Professor Schiller on Darwinism and Design 
| SUPPOSE that it must, on the whole, be reckoned as an encour- 
aging sign of gradual advancement that, from time to time, 
articles dealing with physical science are allowed to appear in the 
monthly Reviews ; for the appearance of such articles indicates that 
the editors of these strictly commercially-conducted Reviews can 
safely reckon upon a tolerable percentage of their readers being 
interested in physical science. 
This apparent gradual spread of an interest in physical science 
is comforting ; and it is good that the huge section of the public, 
who never by any chance read scientific books or scientific periodi- 
eals, should yet, through the medium of the Reviews, acquire some 
slight taste for physical science and some trifling knowledge of 
recent advances therein. From this standpoint, then, the practice of 
inserting scientific articles in the lay Reviews is much to be com- 
mended ; but it is not to be denied that there are compensating dis- 
advantages, and these are due to two factors. 
In the first place, the editors of these Reviews, being usually— 
like most other “ well-educated” Englishmen—utterly ignorant of 
physical science, are hopelessly unable to estimate for themselves 
the value of any scientific article submitted to them, and are thus 
entirely incapacitated from exercising any truly editorial functions 
with regard to such articles; and, in the second place, all these 
Reviews are conducted upon strictly commercial principles, being 
regarded primarily as money-making machines, and only secondarily 
as organs of education and enlightenment. Both these factors con- 
spire to bring about one and the same result, viz., that the editors 
taboo all articles not signed by a big name—which is at once the 
guarantee of profit to their purses and of safety to their ignorance— 
and are naturally tempted to exclude controversial replies. Usually 
their assiduous worship of big names safeguards them from any 
fiasco; but now and then there creeps into a Review an article which 
betrays only too signally the fact that it was entirely unintelligible 
to the “editor,” and that that omnipotent functionary was education- 
ally disqualified from perceiving the extraordinary nature of the 
statements and arguments appearing in his Review. 
To this category seems to belong the article on Darwinism and 
Design, contributed by Professor F. C. 8. Schiller to the Contemporary 
