As to the result on popular thought, may be noted the following comment on the affair by the Revue, which is as free as possible from anything like rabid anti-ecclesiastical ideas: "Elle a ete vraiment curieuse, instructive, assez triste et meme un peu amusante." For Wurtz's statement, see Revue de Therapeutique for 1868, p.

303.
But justice forbids raising an outcry against Roman Catholicism for this.

In 1864 a number of excellent men in England drew up a declaration to be signed by students in the natural sciences, expressing "sincere regret that researches into scientific truth are perverted by some in our time into occasion for casting doubt upon the truth and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures." Nine tenths of the leading scientific men of England refused to sign it; nor was this all: Sir John Herschel, Sir John Bowring, and Sir W.R.Hamilton administered, through the press, castigations which roused general indignation against the proposers of the circular, and Prof.De Morgan, by a parody, covered memorial and memorialists with ridicule.

It was the old mistake, and the old result followed in the minds of multitudes of thoughtful young men.( 286) (286) De Morgan, Paradoxes, pp.

421-428; also Daubeny's Essays.
And in yet another Protestant country this same mistake was made.