CORRESP ONDENCE. 



699 



<&BXXZSpQU&ZUt&. 



PROFESSOR DRUMMOND'S MISTAKE. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Dear Sir : The ordinary reader, having 

 neither the time nor the facilities for verify- 

 ing much of what he reads, must needs take 

 a great deal for granted. 



And this habit of childlike confidence 

 applies especially to the numerous quotations 

 he encounters, for he very naturally assumes 

 that no writer of any pretensions and stand- 

 ing can be so utterly lost to all that is fair 

 and honorable as to deliberately misquote 

 and misrepresent a fellow-craftsman and 

 serve him up to undeserved ridicule. Yet 

 experience proves that it is not prudent to 

 rely too implicitly upon the infallibility of 

 any writer, for it is sometimes apparent that 

 even those who pose as the most strenuous 

 sticklers for the truth when it comes to 

 quoting from the works of rival contempo- 

 raries are not always so successful in resist- 

 ing a natural propensity to lie as was the 

 poet Schiller. 



Criminal carelessness also accounts for 

 many of these garbled quotations, and we 

 find too that in some instances the offender 

 has taken them second hand, and is himself 

 the victim of misplaced confidence, as in the 

 case of Professor Drummond, whose high 

 character constrains us to believe that it was 

 because of his too ready reliance upon the 

 accuracy and integrity of a certain writer in 

 the Contemporary Review that he committed 

 the flagrant injustice of incorporating in his 

 admirable book, the Ascent of Man, not only 

 a palpably garbled version of Herbert Spen- 

 cer's definition of evolution, but also the sar- 

 castic comments of this unprincipled critic 

 upon his own miserable perversion of it. 



But while granting full absolution to the 

 erring professor, we can not but wonder 

 nevertheless that he should have been so 

 easily betrayed into this grave injustice, 

 when, had he carefully read the very para- 

 graph from Spencer to which he refers the 

 reader, he must have discovered how false 

 and misleading was this citation from the 

 Review, as will plainly appear from the fol- 

 lowing comparison : 



On page 5 of the third edition of the As- 

 cent of Man (James Potts, publisher, 1894) 

 we read: "Mr. Herbert Spencer's famous 

 definition of evolution, as a change from an 

 indefinite coherent heterogeneity to a definite 

 coherent heterogeneity through continuous 

 differentiations and integrations," etc., while 

 the version as given on page 65 of Spencer's 

 Data of Ethics, to which Mr. Drummond re- 

 fers us, is really as follows : " Taking the 

 evolution point of view, and remembering 

 that while an aggregate evolves not only the 



matter composing it, but also the motion of 

 that matter passes from an indefinite in- 

 coherent Aomo-geneity to a definite coherent 

 heterogeneity," etc. 



It will be observed hoW effectually the 

 substitution of the underscored syllables 

 clarifies the alleged version and redeems it 

 from utter and idiotic unintelligibility. 



Even when correctly stated we may have 

 differing opinions as to the clearness, con- 

 sistency, and scientific value of Mr. Spencer's 

 "famous definition," but we can not differ 

 as to his right to have it quoted correctly, 

 and doubtless Professor Drummond would 

 have so quoted it but for his overweening 

 confidence in the careless or mendacious re- 

 viewer before alluded to. 



James W. Donaldson. 

 Ellenville, N. Y m November 6, 1897. 



A PROTEST. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir: In an article entitled The Foreign 

 Element in American Civilization, published 

 in the Popular Science Monthly for January, 

 the writer, referring to the Irish, states, " He 

 is first an Irishman, then an American, and 

 such only so far as it is an America of the 

 green flag." To prove his proposition he 

 refers to the great pilgrimage to Ireland this 

 summer to celebrate the centenary of 1798. 



It has been conceded by all impartial 

 writers that of all nationalities there is none 

 that more readily or more naturally assimi- 

 lates as an American citizen or forms a more 

 integral part of the great republic than the 

 Irishman. Every true American feels, 

 knows, and enthusiastically declares that of 

 all human emotions there is none more pow- 

 erful as an incentive to grand and noble 

 deeds than that which brings us back to the 

 spot where we first received a mother's smile, 

 a father's blessing, to the cradle of our child- 

 hood, the playground of our boyhood, the 

 theater of our manhood. I appeal to every 

 battlefield of the Revolution, from Stony 

 Point to Yorktown, upon which Irish blood 

 flowed freely, and the Irish sunburst waved 

 side by side with the red, white, and blue. I 

 appeal to Wayne's bayonets, Knox's artillery, 

 and Morgan's rifles. 



" New force we want to stem the brunt, 

 So bring the Irish to the front." 



They were brought to the front at Stony 

 Point, Monmouth, Bennington, King's Moun- 

 tain, and the Cowpens. I appeal to the vol- 

 canic heights, the towers, the gates, the cac- 

 tus-circled fortresses of Mexico. I appeal 

 to the bloody slopes of Malvern Hill, the 



