The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1890-02-09

Comment snd Ncws Cleaned From
Variety of Sources.

Comment sud Ncws Cleaned From n
Variety of Sources.
TO say nothing Of more serious mat
tiers. tine lawful reverence with which
uuscienuhc people are wont to regard
scientific men is rudely shaken by The
con,emptuous and truculent hostility
with which they publicly treat each
other. For example. two scientific gen
tlemcu in Vienna announce that they
have discovered the microbe which
causes tie " grippe ~ but no sooner l.
che announcement made than NJ Pas
tour pooh pooh, the discovery as a mat
ger OF positively no consequence ; and
ihe next day DR. German See hastens
70 expose the ridiculous blunder Of the
Nioanese gentleman in discovering a
mIer0be which he declares has 10 exist
cuce.
Ia much the same way the confidence
of the non scientific world in scientific
processes and theories is badly shaken
by several revelations made in the Her
uld controversy notably by such stories
as the following. told by one and con-
fessed by another of the parties. 1t APP
pears that one of them, distinguished
writer ON scientific subjects and the edi-
ror of "a scientific periodical, sometime
ag0 came INTO possession Of some imper-
feet remains of a reptile. lie pro-
Ceedcd o. reconstruct the animal. He
gave 20 a scientific name and made
drawing If 1.-THE creature as II was
when alive An account Of it was in
serted in ApTleiou's CyclOpaedia and
300 tie Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society. UDhappily.
however. the learned professor had
made one serious mistake. when II
ISIS alive, the original owner Of those
bones muss have differed materially
from the professor s drawing Of it; be-
cause. ON subsequent examination. II
was found that the learned professor
bad reversed the order Of the verte-
brae In short. he bad put the head
where the tail ought TO have beer
Never in this or any other world, has
any such creature existed as he had
reconstructed and described
Itls human 90 err. as the old Latin
saw runs. aud % is only with the kiId-
liest of laughter that q story like this
ought 20 be received. On the other
60 well To- abale something of that
naughty assumption of infallibiity
with which they have become accus-
tcmed 90 announce rot only their DIS
coveries bus their theories. The his
cory of science is a history OF errors
excessively aud slowly corrected; and
the theoretical errors have often been
as far out of the way as the recon
structcd fossil Of the Philadelphia pro-
fessor. The thing that has been shall
be again. Science is not yet full grown.
A hundred years from now the science
of TO day will perhaps appear TO have
been only in its childhood. then some
prevalent theories. winch are really no
mole than probable conjectuTes. and
yet are prop0unded as confidently as
il they we're verified facts, may turn
Out o. have been put together like the
reconstructed FOSSIL wrong end fore
mos,
scientific criticism, as it occurs to
ust) Observe. shares in the fallibllity
of other branches Of scientific research.
10 E. quite question whether some re-
cent scientific reconstruction Of the
books of the Oll Testament, and even
of tine New. may not turn out TO resem
Die the tabled genus SfreptOsdWtd 10
other words. we suspect that some Of
them will yet turn out TO have their
beads where the tails ought 10 be
It 10 be so. it is important TO remem.
Der chat the fact can be demonstrated
only by yet higher and more scien-
uic criticism. The Churchman.