144 NATURAL SCIENCE [February 



Shakespeare aud Milton there is always room for doubt or suspicion mth respect to the 

 so-called scientific fads, fetishes, hypotheses, &c., which are broached and maintained 

 with bold and aggressive rhetoric by superior ruling men. The principal question to be 

 settled is, whether these fads, &c. , are based on true science, or whether their origin 

 may be assigned to a sort of philosophy of the universe or of things in general, which 

 any superior man possessed of a certain order of mind or kind of talent is bound to hold 

 and maintain ? Thus, for example, the poet Goethe, in the course of his dabbling in 

 scicntitic subjects, was known to seek by intuition the bond which unites the diverse 

 parts of a natural object, and thuswise to imagine his ' ideal type,' which permitted 

 him to re-unite all the animal kingdom into one harmonious whole, although infinitely 

 varied. We learn also that AVordsworth hated science, because it loses the principle of 

 unity and continuity. Tennyson also has given marked expression to the pantheistic 

 conception of the unity of life, as, e.g., in his 'flower in a crannied wall.' Certain 

 French men of science aver that tlie doctrine of evolution is more studied in England 

 than elsewhere. Why this is so it is not easy to comprehend, unless it be that the 

 honest evolutionist is really a sort of poetical pantheist like Goethe, and seeks to intro- 

 duce a unity into everything, and to solve the mysteries of the universe by means of 

 synthesis, going perhaps as far as Lord Kelvin when he talks of 'failure,' because he 

 had not succeeded in merging eS"ects into causes and causes into eflects, and making a 

 unity wherein thought itself would disappear. Such being the pronounced views ex- 

 pounded by various poets and literates, is it to be wondered that many of our eminently 

 rhetorical scientists have been infected therewitli ? The geological doctrine of Uni- 

 formity seems to be a case in point. The aphorism that " the forces of nature have 

 always been in quality and quantity what they are now " cliimes in very harmoniously 

 with the poetic philosojihy of the unity of life and substance and everything else. Per- 

 sons who are atilicted with a baffled desire for unification, and make the unification of 

 life and the physical forces a special feature in their scientific postulates, are not neces- 

 sarily scholastic metaphysicians or sound d priori reasoners. A truly scientific meta- 

 physician wlio holds to the doctrine of pantheism as a more scientific dogma, and does 

 not practically bear it out in the region and area of actual investigation and research, 

 is, of course, placed in a different position altogether. It is therefore the poets, and 

 not the metaphysicians, who ought to bear the blame in what Sir H. Howorth con- 

 demns. P- Q- Keegan. 



PATrERDALE, AVeSTMOKELAND, 



January lAth, 1898. 



A Brighton correspondent sends us a copy of the Church ami Household (Brighton) 

 for November, containing an amusing specimen of Natural History as " she is wrote." 

 A caricature of the argonaut and a drawing of a common lobster figure respectively as 

 a 'pearly nautilus' and a 'scorpion,' while the accompanying letterpress is of about 

 the same standard of trustworthiness. It is surely time that the rudiments of Natural 

 History had penetrated the mind even of the uneducated penny-a-liner ; but alas ! this 

 worried mortal is still in the dark ages. 



NOTICE 



To Contributors. — All Communications to be addressed to the Editor of Natural 

 Science, at 29 Bedford Street, London, W.C. Correspondence and Notes intended 

 for any particular month should be sent in not later than the 10th of the preceding 

 month. 



To THE -Trade. — Natural Science is published on the 25th of each month ; all 

 advertisements should be in the Publishers' hands not later than the 20th. 



Til OUR Subscribers and Others.— There are now published Ten Volumes of 

 Natural Science. Nos. 1, 8, 11, 12, 13, 20, 23, 24 being out of print, can only be 

 supplied in the set of first Four Volumes. All other Nos. can still be supplied at One 

 Shilling each. 



Price of Set of Vols. L, II., III., IV £2 10 



„ V.,VL,VIL,VIII. . . .14 

 ,, I. -VIII 3 10 



One Shilling each Number of any Bookseller. 



Annual Subscription, payable in advance to J. M. Dent & Co;, 29 Bedford Street, 

 London, W.C,, Thirteen Shillings ($3-50), post free. 



CHANGE OF ADDRESS. 

 Messrs J. M, DENT & CO. beg to give notice that from January 1, 1898, 

 the Publishing and Editorial Offices of NATURAL SCIENCE will be removed 

 to their new premises, 29 Bedford Street, W.C. 



