1876.] Notices of Books, 127 
Church” or to doubt that from the days of Pericles down to the 
present year Ecclesiasticism has persecuted science ? If so, he 
is a man with whom no discussion can be held. Discoverers 
are not now, indeed, rewarded with the dungeon or the stake ; but 
let any one merely read over the denunciations of the Royal 
Society, the British Association, and the late Society for the 
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge uttered by ecclesiastics from the 
time of Charles II. to our own times, and he cannot fail to see 
that though the power to make “ martyrs to science” is wanting, 
the desire has not slackened. We can point to many attacks 
upon science made, ostensibly at least, in the interests of religion, 
and far more unwarrantable than anything in Dr. Tyndall’s 
speech. Nay, it is far from improbable that this speech was 
merely an injudicious counter-raid. We would refer here to the 
custom of preaching special sermons to, about, or perhaps rather 
at, the British Association, a custom which we think has been 
adopted in every town where that body has held a meeting. Too 
many of these sermons intimate that science is a very dangerous 
and questionable thing and requires very closely watching. 
Now, being desirous to prevent these unnecessary and unseemly 
conflicts between religion and science, we would suggest that all 
Tyndall-discourses on the one hand, and all these sermons on 
the other, shall be dropped. Let the clergy of any town where 
the British Association may meet preach as they would at any 
other time of the year. Let all scientific theories be suffered to 
stand or fall on their own evidence, without being considered 
amenable to any theological tribunal, and let religious dogmas 
receive a corresponding immunity from scientific jurisdiction. 
Or, putting the matter in another light, let theologians and anti- 
theologians, if fight they must, no longer seleCt the territories of 
science for their battle-field. We fear, however, that such a pro- 
posal would be very unfavourably received by Mr. Main and his 
friends of the Victoria Institute. 
Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution. Washington : Government Printing Office. 1874. 
This volume is particularly valuable as containing elaborate 
biographical notices of two illustrious men of science not long 
ago deceased — Charles Babbage and Louis Agassiz. The former, 
we fear, in his own country at least, scarcely occupies that high 
place in public estimation to which he is so fully entitled. His 
enmity to street music is a standing joke among those who 
never think intensely, and who therefore cannot comprehend the 
distraffiing effeCt of such noise upon a busy brain. But we 
almost question whether in this matter Babbage did not “ strain 
at a gnat and swallow a camel.” Bad as may be the grinding- 
organ and the German band, they must yield the palm of nuisance 
