Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/795

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PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE WAR-PATH.
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that we would fall, did we not keep moving our feet fast enough to prevent it. On the single wheel most of us would fail, because from lack of experience we would make the wheel go too fast, and so would fall backward; or else, not fast enough to keep from falling on our faces. As to falling sidewise, that is prevented exactly as when both wheels are used—the rider turns the cross-bar to the right or left, and propels the machine in that direction. Experience, a level head, and a steady hand tell how far to turn it.

From mere inspection of Fig. 6 we see that safety against headers varies inversely as the height of the saddle, and directly as the distance from the foot of the perpendicular A D to the forward point of support B (Figs. 6 and 7). In other words, the higher the saddle, the greater the danger of headers; and the farther back, the less the danger.

As to the law of lateral safety—i. e., against falling sidewise—it is in one respect the reverse of the other, for the greater the height of the saddle, the easier not to fall to either side, just as it is easier to keep upright on the end of my finger a long stick than a short one.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE WAR-PATH.

By the DUKE OF ARGYLL.

I.

ON the boundless subject of religion it is not possible for any man, within the limits of a magazine article, to set forth his whole mind. If those who write such papers have cause to feel this, those who read them have not less occasion to remember it. Misconception is a constant danger. Beliefs which seem to be vehemently repudiated may nevertheless retain some hold when differently expressed. Doctrines which seem to be insisted on with passion may yet not be held without important modifications. These reserves may not be expressed only because the occasion for expressing them did not seem to arise. Large portions of the whole subject may be left out of view. Those which are actually dealt with may be treated, from the accidents of controversy, in a narrow and angry spirit.

It is with a sincere desire to remember all these reasons for caution that I now call attention to the article by Prof. Huxley published in this Review for the month of July, 1890.[1] But, in full remembrance of the caution, we may fairly say that this article is an open and avowed attack upon Christianity. Nobody has any right to complain of this. But everybody has a right to


  1. Ninteenth Century, July, 1890, The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science.