136 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



above alleged ; for its implication is, not simply that the scientific in- 

 terpretation of vital and social phenomena as conforming to fixed laws 

 is repugnant to him, but that the like interpretation of inorganic phe- 

 nomena is repugnant. In common with the ancient Greek, he regards 

 as irreligious any explanation of Nature which dispenses with imme- 

 diate divine superintendence. He appears to overlook the fact that 

 the doctrine of gravitation, with the entire science of physical as- 

 tronomy, is open to the same charge as this which he makes against 

 the doctrine of evolution ; and he seems not to have remembered that 

 throughout the past each further step made by Science has been de- 

 nounced for reasons like those which he assigns. 1 



It is instructive to observe, however, that, in these prevailing con- 

 ceptions expressed by Mr. Gladstone, which we have here to note as 

 excluding the conception of a Social Science, there is to be traced a 

 healthful process of compromise between old and new. For, as, in the 

 current conceptions about the order of events in the lives of persons, 

 there is a partnership, wholly illogical though temporarily conven- 

 ient, between the ideas of natural causation and of providential in- 

 terference, so, in the current political conceptions, the belief in di- 

 vine interpositions goes along with, and by no means excludes, the 

 belief in a natural production of effects on society by natural agencies 

 set to work. In relation to the occurrences of individual life, we dis- 

 played our national aptitude for thus entertaining mutually-destructive 

 ideas, when an unpopular prince suddenly gained popularity by out- 

 living certain abnormal changes in his blood, and when, on the occa- 

 sion of his recovery, providential aid and natural causation were unit- 

 edly recognized by a thanksgiving to God and a baronetcy to the doc- 

 tor. And, similarly, we see that, throughout all our public actions, 

 the theory which Mr. Gladstone represents, that great men are provi- 

 dentially raised up to do things God has decided upon, and that the 

 course of affairs is supernaturally ordered thus or thus, does not in the 

 least interfere with the passings of measures calculated to achieve de- 

 sired ends in ways classed as natural, and nowise modifies the discus- 

 sion of such measures on their merits, as estimated in terms of cause 

 and consequence. While the prayers with w 7 hich each legislative sit- 



1 In the appendix to his republished address, Mr. Gladstone, in illustration of the 

 views he condemns, refers to that part of " First Principles " which, treating of the recon- 

 ciliation of Science and Religion, contends that this consists in a united recognition of 

 an Ultimate Cause which, though ever present to consciousness, transcends knowledge. 

 Commenting on this view, he says : " Still it vividly recalls to mind an old story of the 

 man who, wishing to be rid of one who was in his house, said : ' Sir, there are two sides 

 to my house, and we will divide them ; you shall take the outside.' " This seems to me 

 by no means a happily-chosen simile, since it admits of an interpretation exactly oppo- 

 site to the one Mr. Gladstone intends. The doctrine he combats is that Science, unable 

 to go beyond the outsides of things, is forever debarred from reaching, and even from 

 conceiving, the power within them ; and, this being so, the relative positions of Religion 

 and Science may be well represented by inverting the application of his figure. 



