100 



♦ KNOAVLEDGE ♦ 



[Jan. 1, 1886. 



long-suffering sort of a fellow — should do the abuse, — not 

 get it. 



* # * 



Similar remarks apply to manuscripts. Those who 

 send unsuitable mnnuscripts, bearing no address (address 

 in accompauying letter is useless) and without stamps 

 for return, expecting that when, perhaps three months 

 later, they apply for their MS., it will of course be 

 forthcoming, prepare for themselves sure and certain 

 disappointment. 



* * * 



I HAVE received from several well-meaning persons, 

 letters begging that I would avoid all remarks such as 

 those upon Dr. Payne Smith's commentary on the Book 

 of Genesis, and keep carefully out of Knowleiige all 

 such writings as Mr. Cltxld's " Story of Creatinn," my own 

 " Science of Religion,'' and Mr. Allen's charming evolu- 

 tionary papers, and in fine so far as I can judge, every- 

 thing which would not have been thought fit for young 

 children fifty years ago. Some who write thus, give as 

 the reason likely to be most effective, their impression 

 that Knowledge would have a much wider sale if its 

 pages were thus specially fitted for the nourishment of 

 babes and sucklings. 



* * * 



Now I prefer it to be thoroughly understood that the 

 tone given to Knowledge depends .solely upon my sense 

 of what is best. Knowledge endeavours to show that 

 the teachings of the science of our day are not subversive 

 of religion, however corrective they may be of reli- 

 gionism. The children in a Sunday-school, or young 

 girls in a seminary of the conventual type, would of 

 course not be benefited by passing suddenly from the 

 simple teachings which have suited them to those which 

 the more advanced require. But this is .so only in the 

 sense in which the lessons of the Differential Calculus 

 (for example) are unsuited to the boy who is advancing 

 from Addition and Subtraction towards Long Division. 

 One might reasonably urge thf,t a statement respecting 

 "Taylor's Theorem" would be confusing to Johnny 

 Noakes or Polly Styles, subtracting 17 from 5\, and 

 perhaps getting 23 for the difference. But a treatise 

 on the Differential Calculus is not meant for those young 

 and as yet not very intellectual persons. And the Diffe- 

 rential Calculus is not only nut inconsistent with all that 

 is true in Subtraction or Multiplication, but emphatically 

 requires that these processes shall be true and truly 

 effected (that the taking of 17 from 51 shall leave 34 and 

 not 23). 



* * * 



I CANNOT keep out of these pages Mr. "Williams' account 

 of coal because it is not a description of the domestic fire- 

 place, nor " F.R.A.S.'"s optical papers because they do not 

 tell us that the fields are green and the skies blue, or Mr. 

 Allen's essays because he does not tell us such things as we 

 used to find in Mavor's Spelling-book, nor Mr. Clodd's be- 

 cause his Story of Creation is not that which in the child- 

 hood of the human i-ace seemed all that was necessary to be 

 known or .suggested as perhaps possible. If it is the 

 case, as no doubt it is, that there are many more ill- 

 informed and child-like persons in the community than 

 there are of those who know more and think at least a 

 little, then so much the smaller for the present is the 

 community for whom we work. But most assuredly we 

 are not going to pretend to write for the community of 

 thinking persons, and in reality to supply matter only for 

 those who mentally and moi'ally are but as children. It 



is no doubt a most desirable thing that these should be 

 taught ; but we have undertaken other work. 



* * * 



A NEW interpretation may be suggested for what was 

 said of old, "Let the dead bury their dead," — to wit, let 

 those who give their best energies to the study of the dead 

 languages bury their dead beliefs under them. Albeit 

 this must be limited to those who make that study the 

 end of their work : those who study the dead languages 

 of the Assyrians, Egyptians, and so forth, that they may 

 interpret better the histories and the thoughts of ancient 

 races, are doing most important work. 



* * * 



It is rather amusing to contrast two remarks in last 

 month's Knowledge, one by Mr. W. ilattieu Williams, 

 the other by Mr. Clodd : — 



Says Mr. Williams, "Modern scientists who discuss 

 dogmatically the propertits of imaginary entities should 

 be warned by the fate of poor old phlogiston or fire- 

 ether, and study its philosophical analogy to the lumini- 

 ferous ether." 



But Mr. Clodd remarks that for the explanation of 

 certain " varied and yet related phenomena, it is a neces- 

 sary assumption that the minutest intervals between 

 atoms, as well as the awful spaces of the universe, are 

 filled with a highly rarefied, elastic medium called ether, 

 which, ever tremulous with unentangled vibrations, is 

 the vehicle of energy, alike from the infinitely great and 

 the infinitely small." 



* * * 



In reality, ilr. Williams overlooks the real analogy, 

 which is between the ray theory of light and heat and 

 the poor old phlogiston. It was the old theory of the 

 emission of something real in the form of rays, a theory 

 whicb, wrong though it was, found favour with Newton 

 and other distinguished men, which might fairly be com- 

 pared with the idea of phlogiston. The theory that heat 

 and light are modes of motion, which displaced the idea 

 that they are actual substances, required that they shall 

 be regarded as tx-aversing interplanetary and interstellar 

 space (as they unquestionably do traverse such space), by 

 vibrations in some medium, — and the ether is simply 

 what we call that medium. No " properties ' have ever 

 been assigned to that ether, either dogmatically or other- 

 wise, except such properties as we recognise from the 

 manner in which vibrations pass through it. In all that 

 science has asserted about ether she is on absolutely sure 

 ground, because every one of these properties may be 

 tested, and has repeatedly been tested, experimentally. 



* * * 



ilR. Williams has selected for attack one of the 

 assumptions of science which has been advanced and 

 maintiiined in the most purely scientific spirit. Assumed 

 to interpret the peculiarities of a most complete and 

 complex series of observations, the theory of an ether 

 has been tested in every conceivable way, even to the 

 calculation of what might be exjiectcd imder new condi- 

 tions, (sometimes of the most complex character) — and 

 invariably the theory has been confirmed. The old 

 theory of light which the vibration theory replaced failed 

 early, or the theory of a luminiferous ether would scarcely 

 have been entertained ; but if that older theory had not 

 failed then, the phenomena of diffi-action and polarization 

 would have sufficed to kill it thoroughly. I cannot 

 imagine that any one acquainted (understandingly) with 

 even the elementary parts of the mathematical inquiry 

 into the wave-theory of light, can question any of the 



