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Science and Savants in 
[November, 
In certain modern works of fiction this step is taken : — 
Persons not engaged in the investigation of Nature are 
shown as affeCted by the results of research. 
We are not going to deny that, especially since the great 
Darwinian reform, Organic Science, Biology, — or, as it was 
formerly called, Natural History, — is found to throw new 
lights upon moral, social, and political problems, and to in- 
fluence the convictions of the many. As such, doubtless, it 
is a perfectly legitimate subject for the novelist, the dramatist, 
and the poet, as well as for the ethicist and the divine. But 
it may, we submit, be fairly demanded that the doCtrines of 
the New Natural History, in as far as they bear upon human 
interests, should be correCtly stated, and their influence be 
impartially weighed. 
We must remember that Science does not do anything — 
does not bid us to do anything. Her function is merely to 
perceive the truth, and to make it known. If we listen 
carelessly, and accommodate our actions to such half-know- 
ledge, we shall do well to lay the blame where it is due. 
These remarks are suggested to us by a modern novel 
from the pen of a writer who is generally classed among the 
“ sensational ” school. Be this as it may, we find in it the 
following passage : — “ He heard all that Brian had to say — 
he listened to his wild ramblings as to the voice of an 
oracle ; and then when Brian had poured out his little stock 
of argument in favour of Materialism, had quoted Aristotle 
and Holbach and Hume and Comte and Darwin, and had 
perverted their arguments against a personal God into the 
divine right of man to ruin his soul and body, John ardine, 
who had read more of Aristotle than Brian knew of all the 
metaphysicians put together, and who had Plato, Kant, and 
Dugald Stewart in his heart of hearts, gravely took up the 
strain and made mincemeat of all Mr. Wendover’s philo- 
sophy.” 
Without any further criticism of this passage, we ask 
what are Darwin’s “ arguments against a personal God ” ? 
In what chapter of his works do they stand written ? We 
must confess that they have never come under our notice. 
Nor can they have struck those eminent men who — both at 
Darwin’s funeral and subsequently — have declared that there 
is in his writings nothing inconsistent with Christianity. 
Not a few foreign writers have expressed themselves sur- 
prised — we will not say disappointed — with the entire 
absence of anti-religious polemics in the “ Origin of Species ” 
and the “ Descent of Man.” Surely then Miss Braddon, 
before writing the passage above quoted, would have done 
