March 30, 1S83.] 



♦ KNOV/LEDGE ♦ 



187 



^ ^ " MAGAZINE OFSqEWCE^ 



i i.AlNi;rVfbRD£ D-£XACTL|i)ESCKIB£D^i 



LONDON: FRIDAY, MARC II 30, 1883. 



Contents of Xo. 74. 



F16II 



Science &nd Art OoBsip 187 



>'atiirsl Laws; A Feace-OfferiDg. 



By E. A. Proctor 189 



Pleasant Hours with the Micro- 

 scope. Bv H. J. Slack, F.G.8., 



F.R.M.S.' 190 



The Chemistrv of Cookery. VI. 



By W. Mattiou Williams 191 



Energy. l!r E. C. Riminaton 192 



How to Use" our ETes. IV. {Illut.) 

 By John Browning, F.R.A.S 193 



rxcB 

 The Great Comet of 1882. (Illut.) 



By Professor C. A. Young 195 



The Crystal Palace Electric «nd Gas 



Exhibition. (/«i...) 19B 



The Face of the Sky 197 



Important Etectrical Ezporimont... 197 



Logical Puzzle 198 



Our Paradox Column : Flat Earth 



r. Globe 198 



Correspondence 199 



Our Chesa Column 200 



^titmt anl) 9rt (@0£({(ip. 



A SINGULAR idea seems to prevail in the minds of many 

 respecting the position of men of science in the matter of 

 religion. They seem to imagine that most men of science 

 are enemies of religion, or at the best are wanting in 

 religion. My experience — which has made me acquainted 

 with great numbers of men of science, science teachers, and 

 science students — points quite the opposite way. I should 

 say that in the best and only true sense of the word the 

 followers of science are, on the average, more religious 

 tlian those who do not study science. And this is only 

 natural The investigations of science set the unknown 

 which lies at the back of the known and of the knowable 

 behind the veil of an infinite mystery. The comparatively 

 commonplace ideas of those who have not learned to 

 recognise the vastness of the universe, and the infinite time 

 intervals belonging to its history, must give place in the 

 mind of the student of nature to worthier though less 

 tangible conceptions. 



But again, it seems imagined by many that the man of 

 science, " to suit his private ends," wishes to dispossess 

 4nen's minds of religious ideas. Men seem continually on 

 the watch for sneers and scofls where neither sneer nor 

 scoff is intended — nay, where it has been the object of the 

 student of science to relieve religion from the oppression 

 of low or deg'-ading conceptions. Men who are not 

 students of nature can hardly conceive with what pain the 

 ■man of science sometimes notes their singularly narrow 

 and stunted ideas of religion. Yet when he rejects ideas 

 which seem to him almost as insults to the sacred name of 

 religion, they exclaim — and doubtless they really believe — 

 that he is a scoffer and a sneerer. 



The student of science has the same interest that all 

 men have, and ever must have, in religion, both as it afiects 

 himself, and as it affects his neighbour and the world at 

 large. His studies in one departmerit of science show him 

 — what some who speak more loudly on the subject have 

 not as thoroughly noted — the value and importance of reli- 

 gion to the world. He knows better than they can tell 



him the folly of scoffing or sneering at religion. But he 

 sees also that it is a duty all men owe to religion to remove 

 it from all association with what is selfish, or profane, or 

 less pure and perfect than it might be. 



Men, however, who chance not to be students of science, 

 call tliose who are (or, perhaps, are teachers of science), 

 unbelievers and misbelievers, just as the Paynims of old 

 called the Crusaders, whose religion was unfamiliar to them, 

 infidel dogs and sons of the evU one. 



We are led to " anticipate that the diverse forms of 

 religious belief which have existed, and which still exist, 

 have all a basis in some ultimate fact. Judging by analogy, 

 the implication is, not that any one of them is altogether 

 right, but that in each there is something right, more or 

 less disguised by other things wrong. It may be that the 

 soul of truth contained in erroneous creeds is very unlike 

 most, if not all, of its several embodiments : and indeed, if, 

 as we have good reason to expect, it is much more abstract 

 than any of them, its unlikeness necessarily follows. But 

 however diflerent from its concrete expressions, some essen- 

 tial verity must be looked for. To suppose that these 

 multiform conceptions should lie one and all absolntfli/ 

 groundless, discredits too profoundly that average human 

 intelligence from which all our individual intt^lligences are 

 derived." — Herbert Spencer, " First Principles," Vol. I., 

 Part I., chap, i., sect. 4. 



Two correspondents send us information respecting the 

 place at Edinburgh where the resolution quoted at page 

 1.t6, col. 2, was passed. We have nothing to do with this. 

 The resolution alone concerned us ; and that was quoted 

 from the Times and other leading papers. If the resolu- 

 tion had been passed in Bedlam it would none the less 

 have been sound and just in itself. We are glad to see 

 that a Church of England Society has taken precisely the 

 same view ; and that a well-known clergyman has delivered 

 himself in terms closely akin to those we had ourselves 

 employed. It appears to us that all who have the true 

 interests of religion at heart should take the same view ; 

 though we based our own view (as expressed here in a 

 scientific journal) on sociological grounds. There should 

 be no laws on our statute-list which cannot be and should 

 not be applicable to all, high and low, rich and poor, 

 learned or unlearned, cultured or uncultured, well-bred or 

 the reverse. 



The Church of England Guild of St. Matthew have 

 memorialised the Home Secretary for the release of the 

 three prisoners convicted at the February Sessions of the 

 Central Criminal Court for blasphemous libel, and have 

 also drawn up a petition praying the House of Commons 

 to repeal all penal enactments against heresy and blas- 

 phemy. The liev. Canon Shuttleworth, writing on the 

 subject of the prosecution, says : — " If blasphemy be an 

 offence against Ucd, then, surely, it is not for man to 

 measure its guilt, or to apportion its punishment. His 

 knowledge is inadequate. (Jod only knows what is a sin 

 against Himself, and what degree of punishment may be 

 deserved in any particular case. Justice would seem to 

 require, then, that the punishment be left to Him. The 

 only essential difference between Mr. Matthew Arnold's 

 sarcasms and the caricatures of Mr. Foote is one of refine- 

 ment. The one is polished, keen, suggestive, the other 

 rough, outspoken, and coarse. One wields the rapier, the 

 other brandishes the bludgeon. We do not prosecute the 

 scholarly and courteous offender, but if we did, no Court 



