It is unfortunate that so great an influence should be wasted on visions as bright and alluring as the rainbow but as unreal and as far removed from the practical sphere of life. To labor to establish the nature of our moral obligations by the square or the circle, and to torture even the divine counsels into a diagram, is to spend time among "infinities and unsearchables, and to beat one's brains about things impossible." It is a strange aberration of vanity that makes us criticize persons for having sources of enjoyment in which we cannot share, and to pursue with intolerant interference and unsparing condemnation all deviations from arbitrary standards. It is a great error to prescribe counsels and principles for stages and aspects of society that are yet unborn. Those who, like the robber of ancient story, would mutilate their fellow-men into a forced conformity with a supreme rule are disposed to attribute their own peculiar tenets to an unusual insight into superhuman things; who fancy they feel: "Divinity within them, breeding wings This is error in its most specious form. It is, to use words applied by Plato to the religious sophists of his day, "ignorance most grievous in the garb of wisdom the most exalted." Macaulay has told us that the Puritans objected to bear-fights, not because they gave pain to the bears, but because they gave pleasure to the spectators. The Pilgrims, the worst class of Puritans, being forced to go to Holland because they could not be tolerated either in England or Scotland, remained there only long enough to absorb all the worst elements of Holland; then they came over to America, and shortly after they landed, as it has been widely but also historically stated, "they fell on their knees and immediately afterward fell upon the aborigines." This Puritan element, in a spirit of narrow-minded fanaticism, would seize upon the day of rest, set aside each week by life, for the purpose of distorting it into a day of gloom, unhappiness, and dreariness, carefully divested of every feature that could be construed into pleasure. They would restore the Puritanical Sabbath in an enlightened age, to which such a suggestion is as repulsive and foreign as would be the witchburnings of Salem. They would make the Sabbath a sort of day of atonement for the sins of the week, stripped of all innocent enjoyment, and given up to long-winded preachers and stupid homilies. They would debar the workman and his family from the fountains of knowledge and the inviting fields of mental improvement and physical recreation, and seek to place him, for the day given up to rest, in a sort of prison from which all pleasure is carefully excluded. "In all things a lawful and regulated enjoyment is the best security against excess." By teaching as absolutely wrong things that are in reality only culpable in their abuse or excess is to destroy the habit of moderate and restrained enjoyment, and a period of absolute prohibition is often followed by a period of unrestrained license. This is the true explanation of the fact, which has so often been noticed, that children of clergymen, or at least children educated on a rigidly austere system, so often conspicuously go to the bad. Such a restraint on a nature unfit for it generally begins by producing hypocrisy, and frequently ends in a violent reaction into vice. While Draco sat in stern judgment upon his fellow-men, speculating on society, not as it was but as he would desire it to be, and writing laws in blood, the wise lawgiver of Athens declared, with the modest confidence of true discretion, that he had given his countrymen, not indeed the best laws, but such as they were able to bear. "Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," there has always existed a class of men affecting a higher morality and honor, and feeling called upon to set right the disarticulated times. They feel that it is necessary for the class of men from whom more lofty notions of virtue, more purity and delicacy and elevation of conduct, are at least expected than from the mass of the community. This holiness of heart and loftiness of soul, the exclusive possession of the elect, constitute, they claim, a depository and a sacred asylum; so that, when the "saving graces" are about to desert us, here they will retire, and here the last traces of their footsteps will be found. Criticism is always abundant and is infinitely less important than performance. It is much easier to be the critic of others than to be the doer of good deeds; it is much easier to behold the mote that is in thy brother's eye than to perceive the beam that is in thine own eye. The supply of "holier than thou" people, who complain of everybody, will never run out. Constant recruits crowd the ranks of those who look complainingly on all that is being done and on all who are doing it, and constantly assume an intimacy with the Almighty, and, as the fortunate man of the Psalm, "walk not in the councils of the ungodly, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law do they meditate day and night." The Pharisee in the parable thanked God that he was not as other men, and he draws a sufficiently forbidding list of what other men are. But, in truth, slight are the differences between men, as compared with the points of likeness and identity. It is a thin and feeble crust that separates the cultivated and moral from the ignorant and wicked. The endless varieties of external situation alone can explain the inconsistency that so often appears between practise and principle; for it is often found that these differ so widely that it is difficult to detect the traces of a common origin. Our sight, as to our own shortcomings, is like the eye, which makes us see and perceive all other things but takes no notice of itself. We are ever ready to take cognizance of the defects of our neighbors with condemnation, and only to our own charac BY LYMAN C. NEWELL, PH.D. The word scientific is often applied to a doctrine, principle, or opinion as a compliment. The word has a good reputation, judging from its generous use. It must be admitted, however, that it is often used with a vague conception of its significance. The last century witnessed the emergence of science from the mist of magic into the clear atmosphere of truth. This regeneration has been not merely a pruning of error but a revolution of method. Hence the terms "science," "scientific," "the scientific method," etc., have become synonymous with specific methods of investigation and interpretation. I desire to point out some characteristics of the scientific method. Science demands evidence from all available sources, be this evidence favorable or detrimental. No stone is left unturned, every spot in the universe must be examined and the data studied before a decision can be given. A man of science who ignores evidence from any source whatever is himself ignored. The results of his work may be published, but no candid thinker believes them. So far is this point carried that many writers append authorities to their statements. This plan is especially common with the most profound investigators, the Germans, whose books often bristle with references to original articles. A conspicuous instance of the supreme regard for evidence is seen in one phase of the recent work of Ramsay on argon and helium. In his efforts to find compounds of these elementary gases, he examined hundreds of rare minerals, mineral waters, and gases from mineral springs. He solicited specimens from chemists, mineralogists, and men class of men from whom more lofty notions of virtue, more purity and delicacy and elevation of conduct, are at least expected than from the mass of the community. This holiness of heart and loftiness of soul, the exclusive possession of the elect, constitute, they claim, a depository and a sacred asylum; so that, when the "saving graces" are about to desert us, here they will retire, and here the last traces of their footsteps will be found. Criticism is always abundant and is infinitely less important than performance. It is much easier to be the critic of others than to be the doer of good deeds; it is much easier to behold the mote that is in thy brother's eye than to perceive the beam that is in thine own eye. The supply of "holier than thou" people, who complain of everybody, will never run out. Constant recruits crowd the ranks of those who look complainingly on all that is being done and on all who are doing it, and constantly assume an intimacy with the Almighty, and, as the fortunate man of the Psalm, "walk not in the councils of the ungodly, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law do they meditate day and night." The Pharisee in the parable thanked God that he was not as other men, and he draws a sufficiently forbidding list of what other men are. But, in truth, slight are the differences between men, as compared with the points of likeness and identity. It is a thin and feeble crust that separates the cultivated and moral from the ignorant and wicked. The endless varieties of external situation alone can explain the inconsistency that so often appears between practise and principle; for it is often found that these differ so widely that it is difficult to detect the traces of a common origin. Our sight, as to our own shortcomings, is like the eye, which makes us see and perceive all other things but takes no notice of itself. We are ever ready to take cognizance of the defects of our neighbors with condemnation, and only to our own charac - |