314 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



Western lawyer.* I send you two Scribners with marked 

 articles that will interest you to glance over, as indicating 

 the depth of the stir among us. Dr. Holland has not got 

 over the drubbing I gave him on evolution, and he has got 

 up this panic with a view " to do the business " for us, and 

 it is unquestionably acting against us. But it is also acting 

 powerfully against him, for the religious world is disgusted 

 at his disclosure of the depth and extent of skepticism, and 

 is pitching into him. As an example, my father and mother 

 refuse to hear the articles read, alleging that "it is the 

 work of some infidel." 



. . . Other magazines publish wickeder articles than we 

 do, and nobody objects, but we are under suspicion because 

 we sail under the flag of science. 



Early in 1874 we find him writing: 



The Popular Science Monthly only holds its own for 

 the last few months, and I think there are some symptoms 

 that we are beginning to lose something with the declining 

 novelty of the enterprise. People bought it from curiosity 

 and a sense of duty, and various motives aside from their 

 desire to read it. The newcomers now only about bal- 

 ance those who fall away. I mean, if possible, to make it 

 more popular. 



To this Mr. Spencer characteristically replied : 



I think you ought to be satisfied if The Popular Science 

 Monthly " only holds its own " if you have reached a cir- 

 culation of 12,000. This is, I think, far beyond what you 

 originally expected to reach, and you can hardly expect to 

 go on increasing without check. I am rather inclined to 



* Hon. J. B. Stallo, of Cincinnati, since minister to Italy, a thinker of 

 rare acuteness. The articles now form a volume in the International 

 Scientific Series. 



