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POPULAR SCIENCE. 



MANY circumstances prove that a taste has arisen for scien- 

 tific information, if not scientific study, beyond that of any 

 antecedent period. Popular magazines, the standard matter 

 of which is assumed to be fiction, nevertheless find room occa- 

 sionally for scientific papers. Scientific lectures are gene- 

 rally well attended, if only the lecturer be competent; and 

 here the fact should be heeded, that in proportion as a lec- 

 turer is more deeply versed in the subject on which he treats, 

 so does he commend himself to an audience. It is worth 

 while to investigate the causes of this change ; for undoubt- 

 edly it is a change, and it is rather sudden. Not by all is 

 this change accepted at one even value. Whilst some per- 

 sons deprecate the scientific spirit, associating it with some 

 notion of irreligion, or at the least free-thinking, others foster 

 the spirit as one calculated to elevate the mind to conceptions 

 of the Deity such as the mind of an individual unacquainted 

 with science can never aspire to. Meantime science ad- 

 vances, drawing within its ranks men of pure minds and high 

 theological training. The time has come when, if members 

 of the clergy be sought to deprecate scientific culture, they 

 cannot be found in the very highest clerical ranks. Upon 



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