Protoplasm at the Antipodes

Abstract

THE Protoplasm excitement seems to have died away in a great measure in this country; and it is probably no loss to science that the matter has ceased to be a prevailing topic of conversation at dinner tables. We learn, however, from the Melbourne papers, that the arrival the February number of the Fortnightly Review in the Australian colonies gave rise to an epidemic there of controversial science in a very alarming form. The description they give of the intellectual condition of Melbourne in June and July last, in fact, reminds us of that famous time at Constantinople, when a cobbler would not mend a pair of shoes until he had converted his customer from a Homousian to a Homoiousian, or vice versâ. The Melbourne Daily Telegraph is proud to think that a city which a few years back could only be stirred by a “Jumping Frog,” is now agitated by proteinaceous theories; and this, too, in spite of the fact that they had previously been warned by the scientific correspondent of the Melbourne Leader of Mr. Huxley's gross ignorance and sensational superficiality. It is perfectly well known that at home here Mr. Huxley has been refuted many more times than there are copies of his article; but in Melbourne he was refuted over again afresh. We learn that the Rev. H. Higginson, “in a singularly able discourse at the Unitarian Church, tore the theory to shreds in a way”—reports the Argus with felicitous dubiety—“which showed the preacher to be as keen a humorist as he is a subtle logician.” So able was the discourse, and so humorous, that it was repeated shortly afterwards as a lecture at the Mechanics' Institute. Here, however, the lecturer stated that it was a mistake to suppose that he had in the sermon either torn the theory to shreds or treated it in a humorous way; and the report of the lecture lends great support to the statement.