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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
THE SPIRIT OF NATURE * 
M R. Baildon writes like an accomplished gentleman ; lie has plenty of 
ideas, a command of good English, and does not fear, even in these 
days of practical Philistines, to elaborate elegant and eloquent sentences. 
He has studied the writings of the advanced school of evolutionists, and 
decides that physical and physiological properties are absolutely independent 
of moral conditions. He states , 1 Something of the history of organisms, of 
physical evolution, we are beginning to know, but spiritual evolution is still 
a mystery.’ In these ideas he will be supported by many more evolutionists 
than he thinks. There is an interesting chapter in which the author deals 
with science and poetry, and he comes to the conclusion that science is no 
more antagonistic to poetry than it is to religion. He follows it up by a 
good attack on the doctrines of Automatism and on the conclusion- jumping 
of the advanced school. But earlier in the volume Mr. Baildon mistakes 
Charles Darwin’s views, and in fact he states , i I have read a great part of 
Mr. Darwin’s Origin of Species .’ He might have studied the whole over and 
over again, and with benefit, and if he had he would not have written the 
following nonsense : — ‘ His followers have seen the weakness of his position, 
and have many of them gone over to atheism. Now I trust I shall not be 
misunderstood, but that you will bear with me till I have fully explained 
myself, when I say that science must always be in a sense atheistic. By 
atheistic here is meant not what denies Deity, but what leaves it out of 
account. Science, so far as it seeks only the particular finite, intelligible or 
secondary cause, and has no concern with the universal, infinite or first 
cause. When, for example, we say to a child that God made such and such 
a thing we give the child no scientific information whatsoever, though we 
impart a religious truth.’ 
Cruelty of Nature is the heading of one chapter, and is eminently pole- 
mical and of course personal. He calls the Laureate a Christian calumniator 
of nature, and opposes the idea that a charge of cruelty can be established 
against nature. But the conclusion he comes to is that nature is not guilty 
if the pain and misery of men and animals is of any use. It must be shown 
that the pain occasioned by her processes is unnecessary or unjust. He jumps 
at the conclusion that the necessity of pain has been established because of 
the existence of pleasure, and the use of pain is a warning. We cordially 
recommend the book to sober-minded readers of all shades of opinion, and 
believe that they will come to the conclusion that evolution and science are 
compatible with the belief in a Creator whom man may approach through 
his intellect. 
* The Spirit of Nature , being a Series of Interpretive Essays on the His- 
tory of Matter from the Atom to the Flower . By H. B. Baildon, B.A. Cantab. 
8vo. Pp. 216. London : J. & A. Churchill. 1880. 
