1864. |. Atheism and Science. 545 
of the author a work of equal merit, without even this one serious 
defect. We havo already spoken of the value of Professor Huxley’s 
illustrations, and now conclude our notice with a word of praise to 
Mr. Wesley, the artist, for the excellent manner in which those illus- 
trations have been transferred to the work itself. 
ATHEISM AND SCIENCE.* 
Tse extraordinary author of the extraordinary book before us says, 
quoting “ Hirschel,” that ‘‘nothing is so improbable but a German 
will find a theory for it,” and he has favoured his readers with a most 
striking example of that truth in the publication of his own atheistical 
and materialistic theories, which are founded, as he believes, upon 
the newest discoveries of natural and physical science. We should 
certainly have allowed his book to run its course unheeded, without 
affording him an excuse for adding another to the four prefaces in 
which he defends himself against the attacks of his persecutors, were 
it not for another truth that it contains—namely, that “ the scientific 
agitation in regard to the question discussed is daily spreading, and 
becoming, without exaggeration, a sign of the present time.” 
The inquiry is, indeed, spreading most rapidly, not strictly 
speaking as an “agitation,” for those who agitate are for the most 
part men of limited knowledge and of no influence in society, and the 
bigotry of narrow theologians effectively prevents men of high 
eminence in science, who hold temperate philosophical views, from 
openly expressing their opinions. The effect is, that a substratum of 
materialism and atheism is silently forming beneath the visible surface 
of intelligent society, and such works as this, or others of a less 
offensive character, are the unhealthy eruptions whereby the disease 
is made manifest. 
We give prominence to the present work in the hope, first, that it 
will awaken in teachers of religion an anxious desire to possess accu- 
rate information on all scientific subjects which have a bearing on 
theology, or where it is not possible for them to devote the necessary 
time to such a study, that they may be induced to seek the co-opera- 
tion of talented savans, instead of regarding them with distrust, or 
driving them into open antagonism by stigmatizing their honest 
labours in the cause of truth as deeds of evil; and in the next place, 
we desire to show our intelligent men of science how necessary it is 
to be cautious in giving utterance to philosophical speculations which 
are lable to misconstruction, though they may appear to be based upon 
scientific data ; and to satisfy them that the men who affect atheism are 
now, as heretofore, persons who possess indeed a larger amount of gene- 
* «Force and Matter.’ Empirico-philosophical Studies, intelligibly rendered, 
&e. By Dr. Louis Biichner, President of the Medical Association ot Hessen- 
Darmstadt, &c.,&e. Edited from the last edition of * Kvaft und Stoff? by J. Fredk. 
Collingwood, F.R.S.L., F.G.S. Triibuer & Co. 
