The Charges Against the Popular Science Monthly. 559 



become such an organ of science as the great body of in- 

 telligent people will admit with confidence into their 

 homes." 



We have exploded the charge of the Post writer, here 

 repeated, because he gave us his evidence, and we had 

 something tangible to deal with. But the Observer scents 

 atheism in everything scientific, and, if we began to ex- 

 purgate in accordance with its notions, we should have to 

 expunge the whole Monthly. For does not the Observer 

 hold evolution to be atheistic ? And what would The Pop- 

 ular Science Monthly be, minus evolution ? It is the new 

 dispensation of scientific thought, cropping out every- 

 where, antiquating old views, affording new explanations, 

 reorganizing knowledge, and guiding the researches of 

 scientific men in every field of investigation. Those who 

 do business on old opinions are- in a great state of pertur- 

 bation and distress about it. Some are for " giving in," 

 some are for patching up compromises, and some for 

 " fighting it out." Meanwhile the tide is carrying every- 

 thing before it, and the confusion of the unready waxes 

 grotesque. The foreign periodicals arrive monthly loaded 

 with evolutionary discussions ; and in the last Contempo- 

 rary Review Calderwood, of Edinburgh, announces that 

 even Hegelianism is but " dialectical evolution." 



The Observer suggests that we make such a periodical 

 " as the great body of intelligent people will admit with 

 confidence to their homes." This sounds well, but what is 

 it in a little plainer English ? " Divest your Monthly of 

 every feature that can be objectionable to those who care 

 a good deal more for theological than for scientific teach- 

 ings, and who have a horror of all science as tending to in- 

 fidelity." We should not be permitted to say a word of 

 the progress of scientific thought, because hardly a step is 

 taken anywhere that somebody with a dogma in that di- 

 rection does not cry, " Halt, you destroyer of religion ! " 



