78o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The antipodean graziers are wool-growers. Until lately, mutton 

 was merely used as manure, and even now it is but a secondary prod- 

 uct. The wool-crop improves year by year until the sheep is three 

 or four years old ; therefore, it is not slaughtered until this age is 

 attained, and thus the sheep sent to England are similar to those of 

 the country squire, and such as the English farmer could not send to 

 market under eighteen pence per pound. 



There is, however, one drawback ; but I have tested it thoroughly, 

 having supplied my own table during the last six months with no 

 other mutton than that from New Zealand, and find it so trifling as to 

 be imperceptible unless critically looked for. It is simply that, in 

 thawing, a small quantity of the juice of the meat oozes out. This is 

 more than compensated by the superior richness and fullness of flavor 

 of the meat itself, which is much darker in color than young mutton. 

 — Knovuledge. 



A DEFENSE OF MODEEN THOUGHT.* 



By WILLIAM D. LE SUEUE, B. A. 



FROM the point of view of the present writer, there are good 

 reasons for believing that a general readjustment of thought is 

 now in progress, and that it is destined to go on until old forms of 

 belief, inconsistent with a rational interpretation of the world, have 

 been completely overthrown. This progressive readjustment is not a 

 thing of yesterday ; it is simply that gradual abandonment of the 

 theological stand-point which has been taking place throughout the 

 ages. As a modern philosopher has remarked, the very conception of 

 miracle marks the beginnings of rationalism, seeing that it recognizes 

 an established order of things, a certain "reign of law," with which 

 only supernatural power can interfere. The progress beyond this 

 point consists in an increasing perception of the universality of law, 

 and an increasing disposition to be exacting as to the evidences of 

 miracle. No candid person can read the history of modern times 

 without arriving at the conclusion that the whole march of civilization 

 illustrates, above everything else, this gradual change of intellectual 

 stand-point. Man's power keeps pace ever with his knowledge of nat- 

 ural law and his recognition of the uniformity of its operations. "What 

 we see to-day is simply the anticipation by thousands of the conclusion 

 to which all past discovei'ies and observations have been pointing, that 

 the reign of law is and always has been absolute. This is really what 

 " agnosticism," so called, means. It means that thinking men are tired 

 of the inconsistencies of the old system of belief, and that they de- 



* From a pamphlet reply to a lecture on " Agnosticism," delivered by the Lord Bishop 

 of Ontario. 



