DENTONISM.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4228, 20 July 1882, Page 3

DENTONISM.

; (To the Editor of the Evening Stah.) Sib,-—I think Mr Denton's series of lectures should not be passed by unnoticed, as they are calculated to unsettle the mind. I haTe not devoted sufficient attention to the subjects he treated of to enable me to refute his arguments, and I should like some person who has given , the matter special study, and I feel con- I fident there are several such on the " . Thames, to contribute a letter, or series of letters, showing the other side. Still even I could detect several weak points in his discourses. lam quite prepared to adiait that Mr Denton is a clever men and well read up in the subjects of hi? lectures, but withal cannot help regarding 1 ' him as "partaking much of the Yankee " showman travelling to mako money. He ; is.a fluent.speaker gifted v»ith no mean oratorical power, but his success .largely depends upon the apropos anecdotes which . .tickle,the fancy of his audience. I did it-Qbt like the satirical.iway in which he \i£ttiimiA-k*Si*m Smith's theory relative ~vs6-t|p Great Pyramid. Now, Mr Smith .iiSA clever, conscientious man, and a man = who is an authority<-*TTne the latchet of ■-'■whose shoes Mr Denton is unworthy to v. unloose as far as learning and profundity ■ are concerned. To *ay the least of it, Mr Smith's iheory is remarkable. There are '. Wny persons who bold it in great esteem, and it was ungenerous for the lecturer to .epdeafor to sneer it out of existence. ;THe would have been quite justified in '"'calirily demonstrating its improbability, . but he went much further. Ihe remark that- Piazzi Smith took no more out of . the Great Pyramid than he put into it would apply with even more force to- Mr .Denton's thpory of the soul. He was very emphatic as to there being a future state, but the proof was'extremely meagre. All I could glean ' was that it was just possible a lower and material being may have evolved a higher and spiritual being. Again, all bis fine theory of evolution falls to the ground if there is no such thing as spontaneous i generation, and the experiments of; scientists are against it. Mr Denton forgot to tell his audience Tyndall completely worsted Dr Eastian on the subject of spontaneous generation a few years ago. Another thing about Mr Denton I did not like was the scoffing tone he adopted towards the cherished beliefs of centuries past and the mass of the people at the present time. Every man has a light to endeavor to show by argument that others are wrong. But sarcasm and the sneer were Mr Denton's weapons of attack, not logic and the gentle spirit. One word more; he declaimed strongly against the money-grubbers, and referred to high-souled men more than once,,, smiting himself emphatically on the breast at the same time, as if to suit the action to the word. Now, it seemed to me that to deliver a lecture on Sunday night, as a public show, with a view to sweeping the almighty dollars into his breeches pocket, was neither high*souled nor generous—in fact, it might be regarded as proof positive that the bump of acquisitiveness, which is not sltnaled in the third storey, has attained.; .^prodigious development in the worthy lecturer. I felt that to thus ignore the universal sentiment of the saoredness of the day. by delivering a fanny lecture; which not only was calculated to, but 'did,' evoke laughter and applause, was execrable taste. Hoping some abler pen than* mine will deal with the lectures from a scientific point—l am, &k,, , ' . Animated Dot.