< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu
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EDITOR'S TABLE.

must work the deepest and most far reaching revolution in human thought of any truth to which the human mind has ever attained. Therefore we have taken some pains to keep our readers informed about it. And this was the more necessary, as the literary periodicals of large circulation pass the subject by, and the larger the circulation the more carefully is it ignored. They value, prefer, and select that which will "pay," and in so doing they cater, for mercenary purposes, to the caprice frivolity, prejudice, and ignorance of their readers, not troubling them much with the great and serious truths which science is working out for the world. It is gratifying to find that we are not singular in our estimate of the relative moment and significance of these two forms of intellectual occupation. A writer who gives elaborate consideration to President White's "Warfare of Science" in the Westminster Review opens with the following pungent observations:

"It has always seemed to us a matter for some wonder that people should take such a deep interest in the peddling events of poor individual human existences, and so little in the dynasty of ideas; that they should be content to wear their eyes out over the driveling three-volumed account of the loves and hates of vapid men and women, to indulge their finest emotions over the fifth act of some puling melodrama, and yet be altogether indifferent to the gigantic drama of truth in which the unity of place is the world, the unity of time the centuries, and the actors are beneficent truths or malevolent errors. Why men should be indifferent to these momentous events in the past which constituted the history of science, the history of philosophy, and, in the truest sense, the history of religion, and yet should enter with such eager zest into the gossip of the day and the trivialities of personal reminiscence, it is difficult to say. But, however hard it may be to discover the meaning of, there is no possibility of doubting, the fact. While the personal histories of men who have very small claims upon our better sympathies are read with avidity, the impersonal narrative of truths which have paramount claims upon our hearts and our heads are treated with the passive contempt of neglect. Men are much to us, while doctrines are little. We like to have our truths in the flesh; and we are too apt, when we find a doctrine incarnated, to neglect the sacred revelation and worship the man, to transfer the reverence which is due to an idea to the individual who is, as it were, the bearer of it. Here we have, in epitome, the history of many religions. Men will worship the truth with startled reverence, then they will worship the truth-bearer and overlook the truth in the symbol, and forget that of which it is the sign."

CONCERNING "BLUE GLASS."

We are asked why we do not discourse of Pleasonton and "blue glass." Why should we? Is it not abundantly considered by the press already? The object of our pages is to treat of subjects that are too generally neglected; to give expression to those great results of discovery and scientific thought which get but a meagre share of attention from the popular press, and we cannot find half room enough to do this work as it should be done. "But, really, what do you think of Pleasonton, and the blue-glass cure?" is now the obtrusive question. Well, we think that the man is a pestilent ignoramus, and his book the ghastliest rubbish that has been printed in a hundred years. He may be entirely honest, but that is no reason why we should give attention to his egregious folly. Pleasonton, however, it must be confessed, serves one important function: he gauges for us the depth and density of American stupidity. De Morgan says, somewhere, that certain men appear occasionally to play the part of "foolometërs" in the community, that is, to measure the number and quality of the fools furnished by any given state of society. Pleasonton has done this for us with an accuracy that leaves nothing to be desired. Our showing in this respect is on a very handsome scale, fully commensurate with the length of the Mississippi, the sweep of the prairies, the glory of the Centennial Exhibition, the grandeur of the national debt, and

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