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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Science and Morals and Other Essays, by 
+Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Science and Morals and Other Essays
+
+Author: Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
+Release Date: February 25, 2008 [EBook #24684]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE, MORALS, OTHER ESSAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND MORALS
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND MORALS
+AND OTHER ESSAYS
+
+BY
+
+SIR BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE
+
+M.A., M.D., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., K.S.G.
+OF ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE, TORONTO, ONT.
+
+
+LONDON
+BURNS & OATES, LTD
+28 ORCHARD STREET, W
+1919
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO
+
+JOHN ROBERT and MARY O'CONNELL
+
+A TOKEN OF SINCERE FRIENDSHIP
+
+LISTARKIN
+  September 1919
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These Essays have all in one form or another appeared elsewhere; and I
+have to thank the Editors of the _Dublin Review_, _Catholic World_,
+_America_, and _Studies_ respectively for kind permission to reproduce
+them. Some of them appear as they were published, others have been
+almost rewritten.
+
+          B. C. A. W.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                    PAGE
+
+   I. Science and Morals                               1
+     § 1. The Gospel of Science                        1
+     § 2. Science as a Rule of Life                   14
+
+  II. Theophobia and Nemesis                          26
+     § 1. Theophobia: its Cause                       26
+     § 2. Theophobia: its Nemesis                     44
+
+ III. Within and Without the System                   56
+
+  IV. Science in "Bondage"                            74
+
+   V. Science and the War                            106
+
+  VI. Heredity and "Arrangement"                     125
+
+ VII. "Special Creation"                             142
+
+VIII. Catholic Writers and Spontaneous Generation    152
+
+  IX. A Theory of Life                               160
+
+      Index of Names                                 175
+
+      General Index                                  177
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND MORALS
+
+
+
+
+I. SCIENCE AND MORALS
+
+
+§ 1. THE GOSPEL OF SCIENCE
+
+In the days before the war the Annual Address delivered by the President
+of the British Association was wont to excite at least a mild interest
+in the breasts of the reading public. It was a kind of Encyclical from
+the reigning pontiff of science, and since that potentate changed every
+year there was some uncertainty as to his subject and its treatment, and
+there was this further piquant attraction, wanting in other and
+better-known Encyclicals, that the address of one year might not merely
+contradict but might even exhibit a lofty contempt for that or for those
+which had immediately preceded it.
+
+During the three years immediately preceding the war we had excellent
+examples of all these things. In the first of them we were treated to a
+somewhat belated utterance in opposition to Vitalism. Its arguments were
+mostly based upon what even to the tyro in chemistry seemed to be rather
+shaky foundations. Such indeed they proved to be, since the deductions
+drawn from the behaviour of colloids and from Leduc's pretty toys were
+promptly disclaimed by leading chemists in the course of the few days
+after the delivery of the address.
+
+Further, the President for the year 1914 in his address (Melbourne, p.
+18)[1] told us that the problem of the origin of life, which, let us
+remind ourselves, in the 1912 address was on the point of solution,
+"still stands outside the range of scientific investigation," and that
+when the spontaneous formation of formaldehyde is talked of as a first
+step in that direction he is reminded of nothing so much as of Harry
+Lauder, in the character of a schoolboy, "pulling his treasures from his
+pocket--'That's a wassher--for makkin motor-cars!'" Nineteen hundred and
+twelve pinned its faith on matter and nothing else; Nineteen hundred and
+thirteen assured us that "occurrences now regarded as occult can be
+examined and reduced to order by the methods of science carefully and
+persistently applied."[2] Further, the examination of those facts had
+convinced the deliverer of the address "that memory and affection are
+not limited to that association with matter by which alone they can
+manifest themselves here and now, and that personality persists beyond
+bodily death." Nineteen hundred and fourteen proclaimed telepathy a
+"harmless toy," which, with necromancy, has taken the place of
+"eschatology and the inculcation of a ferocious moral code." And yet it
+is on telepathy, if we are to believe the daily papers, that Sir Oliver
+Lodge largely relies for his proofs. Here, at any rate, is a pleasing
+diversity of opinion which fully bears out what was said at the
+beginning of this paper. It is, however, with the third address, or
+rather pair of addresses, that we are concerned; for the meeting of
+1914, not only was the first to be held at the Antipodes, but also the
+first to be honoured with two addresses--one in Melbourne, the other in
+Sydney.
+
+Their deliverer is a very distinguished and a very independent man of
+Science. It was he who insisted, at a time when the domination of a very
+rigid form of Darwinism was much stronger than it is to-day, that the
+picture of Nature as seen by us is a Discontinuous picture, though
+Discontinuity does not exist in the environment. And it was he who asked
+whether the Discontinuity might not be in the living thing itself, and
+prefixed to the monumental work[3] in which he discussed this question
+the significant text from the Bible: "All flesh is not the same flesh;
+but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another
+of fishes, and another of birds." Nearer to our own times, he was one of
+a small body of men of science who almost synchronously disinterred the
+forgotten works of Abbot Mendel, and proclaimed them to the world, as
+containing discoveries of the first value. He was thus always something
+of a "Herald of Revolt," and maintains that character in these
+addresses. "We go to Darwin for his incomparable collection of facts. We
+would fain emulate his scholarship, his width and his power of
+exposition, but to us he speaks no more with philosophical authority. We
+read his scheme of evolution as we would those of Lucretius or Lamarck,
+delighting in their simplicity and their courage" (M., p. 9).
+"Naturally, we turn aside from generalities. It is no time to discuss
+the origin of the Mollusca or of Dicotyledons, while we are not even
+sure how it came to pass that _Primula obconica_ has in twenty-five
+years produced its abundant new forms almost under our eyes" (_ib._,
+_ib._). And so on. To take one other example: there is nothing which was
+more insisted upon by Darwinians than the fact that all the various
+races of domestic fowl known to us came from _Gallus bankiva_, the
+jungle-fowl of India; in fact I think I have seen that form enthroned
+amongst its supposed descendants in more than one museum. "So we are
+taught; but try to reconstruct the steps in their evolution and you
+realise your hopeless ignorance" (M., p. 11). If we cannot construct a
+"tree" for fowls, how absurd to adventure into the deeper recesses of
+Phylogeny. If all that Professor Bateson says is true, is not Driesch
+right when he speaks of "the phantasy christened Phylogeny"?[4]
+
+The addresses, however, were not solely concerned with throwing contempt
+upon views which were yesterday of great respectability, and which even
+to-day are as gospel to many. They devoted themselves chiefly to the
+consideration of the question of heredity, viewed, as might be expected,
+from the Mendelian standpoint.
+
+Now, at this point it may be said that there are at least two things
+which we should like to know about heredity--the vehicle and the laws.
+It is clear that we might know something, perhaps even a good deal,
+about one of these without knowing anything about the other.
+
+Such in fact is the case; for we know, it may fairly be said, nothing
+about the vehicle. There are two very widely distinct opinions on this
+point. There is the mnemic theory, recently brought before us by the
+republication of Butler's most interesting and suggestive work with its
+translations of Hering's original paper and Von Hartmann's discourse and
+its very illuminating introduction by Professor Hartog.[5]
+
+And there is the continuity theory which teaches that in some way or
+another the characteristics of the parents and other ancestors are
+physical parts of the germ. An attempt to explain this was made by
+Darwin in his theory of Pangenesis. Others have essayed what Yves Delage
+calls "micromeristic" interpretations. As to all of these it may be said
+that when they are reduced to figures the explanation becomes of so
+complex a character as utterly to break down. We shall see that
+Professor Bateson adopts a third very nebulous explanation. But as
+regards the laws of heredity there is something else to be said; for
+here we really do know something, and that something we owe in large
+measure to the innumerable experiments which have been made on Mendelian
+lines since the re-discovery of the methods first adopted by the
+celebrated Abbot of Brünn. It is no intention of the writer of this
+paper to describe the Mendelian theory,[6] which is well known, at least
+to all biological readers, though one or two points in connection with
+it may yet have to be touched upon.
+
+The point of cardinal importance in connection with Mendelism is that it
+does reveal a law capable of being numerically stated, and apparently
+applicable to a large number of isolated factors in living things.
+Indeed it was this attention to isolated factors which was the first and
+essential part of Mendel's method. For example, others had been content
+to look at the pea as a whole. Mendel applied his analytic method to
+such things as the colour of the pea, the smooth or wrinkled character
+of the skin which covered it, its dwarfness or height, and so on.
+
+Now, the behaviour of these isolated factors seems to throw a light even
+upon the vehicle of heredity. We often talk of "blood" and "mixing of
+blood," as if blood had anything to do with the question, when really
+the Biblical expression "the seed of Abraham" is much more to the point.
+For it is in the seed that these factors must be, whether they be mnemic
+or physical. Professor Bateson (M., p. 5) thinks it obvious that they
+are transmitted by the spermatozoon and the ovum; but it seems to him
+"unlikely that they are in any simple or literal sense material
+particles." And he goes on to say, and this, I think, is one of his most
+important statements: "I suspect rather that their properties depend on
+some phenomenon of arrangement."
+
+Now, if there be a law behind the phenomena made clear to us by
+Mendelian experiments (as Mendelians are never tired of asserting), then
+it becomes in no way impertinent to ask how that law came into
+existence, and who formulated it. Darwinism, according to Driesch,[7]
+"explained how by throwing stones one could build houses of a typical
+style." In other words, it "claimed to show how something purposively
+constructed could arise by absolute chance; at any rate this holds of
+Darwinism as codified in the seventies and eighties." Of course the
+Blind Chance doctrine breaks down utterly when it comes to be applied to
+selected cases, and nothing more definitely disposes of it than the very
+definite law which emerges as the result of the Mendelian experiments.
+That is obvious to the prophets of Mendelism; but, whilst they admit
+this, they will have nothing to say to the lawgiver. That is the
+"rankest metaphysics," as Dr. Johnstone puts it,[8] or "mysticism," as
+others prefer to call it. And yet nothing is more clear than the
+logical sequence that, if you have a law, someone must have made it,
+and if you look upon something as "a phenomenon of arrangement," someone
+must have arranged it. But for reasons not obvious nor confessed, there
+is an objection to make any such admission. Perhaps it is the taint of
+the monism of the latter half of the last century which still persists.
+
+At any rate, as I have elsewhere pointed out, there is a most curious
+passage in another paper by the same author in which he says: "With the
+experimental proof that variation consists largely in the unpacking and
+repacking of an original complexity, it is not so certain as we might
+like to think that the order of these events is not pre-determined." The
+writer hastens to denounce the horrid heresy on the brink of which he
+finds himself hesitating, by adding that he sees "no ground whatever for
+holding such a view," though "in the light of modern research it
+scarcely looks so absurdly improbable as before."[9] It is curious that
+the writer in question does not seem to have been in any way influenced
+by the eliminative argument so potent in connection with the discussion
+on Vitalism. We ask for an explanation of the occurrences--say of
+regeneration. We find that no physical explanation in the least meets
+the needs of the case, and we are consequently obliged to look for it in
+something differing from the operations of chemistry and physics. Of
+this argument Dr. Johnstone[10] says: "It is almost impossible to
+overestimate the appeal which it makes to the investigator."
+
+Now, this matter of "arrangement" or of "pre-determination," when put
+forward as an explanation, even tentatively, necessitates a step
+further. That step might possibly be in the direction of pantheism,
+though, according to Driesch,[11] pantheism is the doctrine "that
+reality is a something which makes itself ('_dieu se fait_,' in the
+words of Bergson), whilst theism would be any theory according to which
+the manifoldness of material reality is predetermined in an immaterial
+way." And he concludes "that those who regard the thesis of the theory
+of order as necessary for everything that is or can be, must accept
+theism, and are not allowed to speak of '_dieu qui se fait_.'" It is
+difficult to see how anyone who has studied the rigid order exhibited by
+experiments on Mendelian lines can resist the logic of this argument
+unless indeed he takes a place on Plate's platform, which admits that a
+law entails a lawgiver, but declares that of the Lawgiver of Natural
+Laws we can know nothing.[12]
+
+There is a further point in connection with Mendelian theories which is
+worth noting in this connection. It would appear that no new factor is
+ever brought into being, that is, no _addition_ is ever made by
+variation. According to this theory the things which appear to be
+added--a new colour or a new scent--were there all the time. They were
+"stopped down" or inhibited by some other factor, which, when
+eliminated, allows them to come into play, and thus to become obvious to
+the observer from whom they had been hidden. Thus, Professor Bateson
+(M., p. 17) has confidence "that the artistic gifts of mankind will
+prove to be due, not to something added to the make-up of an ordinary
+man, but to the absence of factors which in the normal person inhibit
+the development of these gifts. They are almost beyond doubt to be
+looked upon as _releases_ of powers normally suppressed. The instrument
+is there, but it is 'stopped down.'"
+
+That all sorts of things may exist in a very small compass no doubt
+is true. Professor Bateson reminds us that Shakespeare was once
+"a speck of protoplasm not so big as a small pin's head." The
+difficulty--insuperable on ordinary monistic lines--is how all these
+things got into the germ if no additions ever take place. It was so
+difficult to account, for example, for artistic appreciation on the part
+of man or for gifts of an artistic character that Huxley was fain to
+describe them as gratuitous; but on this showing all characters are
+gratuitous in the sense that they are not acquired. We may reasonably
+inquire not merely how all these characters and factors got themselves
+"arranged" or "packed," but where they came from, and how they came to
+be in the germ at all, matters on which we receive no information in
+these addresses. No doubt the author of the addresses would say that it
+was no part of his business to explain this matter; that he took this
+system of Nature as a going system and did his best to explain it as
+such and without attempting, perhaps even without desiring, to explain
+how it got a-going. If that be the case, and if ignorance on this head
+must be his confession, it is a little difficult to understand the
+confidence with which he sets himself to discuss the "extraordinary and
+far-reaching changes in public opinion [which] are coming to pass." We
+shall find these, as we pass them in review, to be extraordinary enough,
+though not very new.
+
+In the first place, "genetic research will make it possible for a nation
+to elect by what sort of beings it will be represented not very many
+generations hence, much as a farmer can decide whether his byres shall
+be full of shorthorns or Herefords. It will be very surprising indeed if
+some nation does not make trial of this new power. They may make awful
+mistakes, but I think they will try" (S., p. 8). It is curious how the
+war, which had just commenced when these addresses were being delivered,
+has absolutely disposed, or ought to have disposed, of some of the
+prophecies of the President. Nothing, at any rate, seems more certain
+than that one result of this most disastrous struggle will be an urgent
+demand by all the States engaged in it for at least as many male
+children as the mothers of each country can supply, without special
+regard to their other characters, breedable or not breedable. We are
+even told that Germany is resorting to expedients which cannot be
+justified on Christian principles to fill her depleted homes. Whether
+this be true or not the fact remains that nothing is now more to be
+desired by all the combatant nations than what we call in Ireland "long
+families." But even if there had been no war, there is one other factor
+which makes it quite certain that no country ever will try, or if it
+ventures to try, will ever succeed in any such experiment, and that
+factor, forgotten by philosophers of this kind, is human nature. Mr.
+Frankfort Moore years ago wrote a pleasant story, called "The Marriage
+Lease," in which doctrinaire legislation of a somewhat similar kind was
+described, and its inevitable failure most amusingly depicted. The war
+disposes of another of the President's maxims (S., p. 10), that the
+decline in the birth-rate of a country is nothing to be grieved about,
+and that "the slightest acquaintance with biology" shows that the
+"inference may be wholly wrong," which asserts that "a nation in which
+population is not rapidly increasing must be in a decline" (S., p. 10).
+Human nature was neglected in the first-mentioned case, and here it is
+the turn of history to pass into the shade, history which, _pace_ the
+President, has really a good deal more bearing upon a question of this
+kind than the "school-boy natural history" which he thinks capable of
+settling it. Thus we advance from breeding to Malthusianism. It is
+perhaps not wonderful that our next step should be the quiet, and of
+course painless, extinction of the unfit.
+
+    "Thou shalt not kill, but needs't not strive
+     Officiously to keep alive."
+
+Thus wrote Clough; but our author, it appears, would go further than
+this. "The preservation of an infant so gravely diseased that it can
+never be happy or come to any good is something very like wanton
+cruelty. In private life few men defend such interference" (S. 10). And
+so such unfortunates should be got rid of, and will be "as soon as
+scientific knowledge becomes common property"--when "views more
+reasonable, and, I may add, more humane are likely to prevail." Lest we
+should be depressed by this massacre of the innocents, we are told that
+"man is just beginning to know himself for what he is--a rather
+long-lived animal, with great powers of enjoyment if he does not
+deliberately forgo them" (S., p. 9). In the past, poor fool that he has
+been, he has not availed himself of his opportunities: "Hitherto
+superstition and mythical ideas of sin have predominantly controlled
+these powers." Let us, however, take heart: "Mysticism will not die out;
+for those strange fancies knowledge is no cure; but their forms may
+change, and mysticism as a force for the suppression of joy is happily
+losing its hold on the modern world" (_ib._, _ib._). Let us eat and
+drink--and, it may be added, sin--for to-morrow we die. Such is the new
+gospel of science, an old enough gospel, tried and found wanting years
+before its latest prophet arose to proclaim it to the world. Surely no
+more ridiculous utterance ever was made; for its author evidently did
+not pause to consider that the sins which make life pleasant to some
+(for example, Thuggery) are apt to have quite another aspect to those
+through whose victimisation the pleasure is obtained. There is also here
+such a thing as the conscience, which has to be taken into account. Even
+the biological hedonist must originally possess such a thing and, it may
+be supposed, must deal with it as he would with the gravely diseased
+children, and as something which would "predominantly control his powers
+of enjoyment."
+
+Seriously, it may be doubted if a more pagan code of morals has ever
+been laid down, and this in the Encyclical of Science for the year, a
+code bad enough to make poor Mendel turn in his grave could he--good,
+honest man--be aware of it, and imagine that he was in any way
+responsible for it, which, by the way, is in no way the case.
+
+
+§ 2. SCIENCE AS A RULE OF LIFE
+
+Saint or sinner, some rule of life we must have, even if we are wholly
+unconscious of the fact. A spiritual director will help us to map out a
+course of action which will assist us to shake off some little of the
+dust of this dusty world; and a doctor will lay down for us a dietary
+which will help us to elude, for a time at least, the insidious onsets
+of the gout. Even if we take no formal steps, spiritual or corporeal,
+some rule of life we must achieve for ourselves. We must, for example,
+make up our minds whether we are to open our ears and our purse to tales
+of misery, or are to join ourselves with those whose rule of life it is
+to keep that which they have for themselves. What is true of each of us
+is none the less true of each and every race--even more true; for each
+race must make up its mind definitely as to which rule it will follow.
+And at the moment there is still doubt and indecision in this matter.
+
+"The moral problem that confronts Europe to-day is: What sort of
+righteousness are we, individually and collectively, to pursue? Is the
+new righteousness to be realised in a return to the old brutality? Shall
+the last values be as the first? Must ethical process conform to natural
+process as exemplified by the life of any animal that secures dominancy
+at the expense of the weaker members of its kind?"[13] Such are the
+questions raised by a man of science occupying the Presidential Chair of
+an important society and speaking to that society as its President.
+
+As to the Christian ideals little need be said, since we know very well
+what they are, and know this most especially, that practically all of
+them are in direct opposition to what we may call the ideals of Nature,
+and exercise all their influence in frustrating such laws as that of
+Natural Selection. "Nature's Insurgent Son," as Sir Ray Lankester calls
+him,[14] is at constant war with Nature, and when we come to consider
+the matter carefully, in that respect most fully differentiates himself
+from all other living things, none of which make any attempt to control
+the forces of Nature for their own advantage. "Nature's inexorable
+discipline of death to those who do not rise to her standard--survival
+and parentage for those alone who do--has been from the earliest times
+more and more definitely resisted by the will of man. If we may for the
+purpose of analysis, as it were, extract man from the rest of Nature, of
+which he is truly a product and a part, then we may say that man is
+Nature's rebel. Where Nature says 'Die!' man says 'I will live.'"[15]
+
+To this it may be added that, under the influence of Christianity, man
+goes a step further and says: "I will endeavour that as many others as
+may be shall live, and live happy, healthy lives, and shall not untimely
+die." The law of Natural Selection could not be met by more direct
+opposition. I have said that this is under the influence of
+Christianity, yet the impulse seems to be older than that, to be part of
+that moral law which excited Kant's admiration, which he coupled with
+the sight of the starry heavens, an impulse, we can scarcely doubt,
+implanted in the heart of man by God Himself. It is a remarkable fact
+that in many--some would say most--of the less civilised races of
+mankind we find these social virtues, which some would have us believe
+are degenerate features foisted on to the race by an enervating
+superstition.
+
+Dr. Marett has carefully examined into this matter, and his conclusions
+are of the greatest interest.[16]
+
+     "My own theory about the peasant, as I know him, and about
+     people of lowly culture in general so far as I have learnt
+     to know about them, is that the ethics of amity belong to
+     their natural and normal mood, whereas the ethics of enmity,
+     being but 'as the shadow of a passing fear,' are relatively
+     accidental. Thus to the thesis that human charity is a
+     by-product, I retort squarely with the counter-thesis that
+     human hatred is a by-product. The brute that lurks in our
+     common human nature will break bounds sometimes; but I
+     believe that whenever man, be he savage or civilised, is at
+     home to himself, his pleasure and pride is to play the good
+     neighbour. It may be urged by way of objection that I
+     overestimate the amenities, whether economic or ethical, of
+     the primitive state; that a hard life is bound to produce a
+     hard man. I am afraid that the psychological necessity of
+     the alleged correlation is by no means evident to me. Surely
+     the hard-working individual can find plenty of scope for his
+     energies without needing, let us say, to beat his wife. Nor
+     are the hard-working peoples of the earth especially
+     notorious for their inhumanity. Thus the Eskimo, whose life
+     is one long fight against the cold, has the warmest of
+     hearts. Mr. Stefanson says of his newly discovered 'Blonde
+     Eskimo,' a people still living in the stone age: 'They are
+     the equals of the best of our own race in good breeding,
+     kindness, and the substantial virtues.'[17] Or again, heat
+     instead of cold may drive man to the utmost limit of his
+     natural affections. In the deserts of Central Australia,
+     where the native is ever threatened by a scarcity of food,
+     his constant preoccupation is not how to prey on his
+     companions. Rather he unites with them in guilds and
+     brotherhoods, so that they may feast together in the spirit,
+     sustaining themselves with the common hope and mutual
+     suggestion of better luck to come. But there is no need to
+     go so far afield for one's proofs. I appeal to those who
+     have made it their business to be intimate with the folk of
+     our own countryside. Is it not the fact that unselfishness
+     in regard to the sharing of the necessaries of life is
+     characteristic of those who find them most difficult to come
+     by? The poor are by no means the least 'rich towards God.'
+     At any rate, if poverty sometimes hardens, wealth,
+     especially sudden wealth, can harden too, causing arrogance,
+     boastfulness, and the bullying temper. 'A proud look, a
+     lying tongue, and the shedding of innocent blood'--these go
+     together."
+
+On the whole, then, we may perhaps conclude that the natural bias of
+mankind is towards kindness to his neighbour, however much the brute in
+him may sometimes impel him to uncharitable words or actions. And
+certainly this natural bias is intensified and made into a binding law
+by the teachings of Christ. But there is the other point of view set
+forward in the philosophy of Nietzsche--if indeed such writings are
+worthy of the name philosophy. "The world is for the superman. Dominancy
+within the human kind must be secured at all costs. As for the old
+values, they are all wrong. Christian humility is a slavish virtue; so
+is Christian charity. Such values have become 'denaturalised.' They are
+the by-product of certain primitive activities, which were intended by
+Nature to subserve strictly biological ends, but have somehow escaped
+from Nature's control and run riot on their own account."
+
+The prophets of this group of ideals, or some such group of ideals, have
+no hesitation in telling us how they would direct the affairs of
+humanity if they were entrusted with their conduct. It will not be
+without interest to consider their plans and to endeavour to form some
+sort of an idea of what kind of place the world would be if they had
+their way. We can then form our own opinion as to whether a world
+conducted on such lines would be in any way a tolerable place for human
+existence.
+
+First of all we may dwell briefly on Natural Selection as a rule of
+life, since it has been put forward as such by quite a number of
+persons. Never, let it at once be said, by the great and gentle-hearted
+originator of that theory, who during his life had to protest as to the
+ignorant and exaggerated ideas which were expressed about it and who,
+were he now alive, would certainly be shocked at the teachings which are
+supposed to follow from his theory and the dire results which they have
+produced.[18]
+
+In the first place such a doctrine leads directly to the conclusion that
+war, instead of being the curse and disaster which all reasonable
+people, not to say all Christians, feel it to be, is, as Bernhardi puts
+it, "a biological necessity, a regulative element in the life of mankind
+that cannot be dispensed with." It is "the basis of all healthy
+development." "Struggle is not merely the destructive but the
+life-giving principle. The law of the strong holds good everywhere.
+Those forms survive which are able to secure for themselves the most
+favourable conditions. The weaker succumb." Humanity has had at times
+evidences of the results of this teaching which are not, one may fairly
+say, of a kind to commend themselves to any person possessed of a
+moderately kindly, not to say of a Christian, disposition. Fortunately,
+or unfortunately, we have the opportunity of studying the experiment in
+actual operation in a race which, of course in entire ignorance of the
+fact, is actually putting into practice the teachings of Natural
+Selection, though it must be admitted that the practice has not been
+successful, nor does it look like being successful, in raising that race
+above the very lowest rung of the ladder of civilisation. Captain
+Whiffen[19] has given a very complete and a very interesting account of
+the peoples whom he met with during his wanderings in the regions
+indicated by the title of his book. And he tells us that "the survival
+of the most fit is the very real and the very stern rule of life in the
+Amazonian forests. From birth to death it rules the Indians' life and
+philosophy. To help to preserve the unfit would often be to prejudice
+the chances of the fit. There are no arm-chair sentimentalists to oppose
+this very practical consideration. The Indian judges it by his standard
+of common sense: why live a life that has ceased to be worth living when
+there is no bugbear of a hell to make one cling to the most miserable of
+existences rather than risk greater misery?" Let us now see the kind of
+life which the author, freed himself no doubt from "the bugbear of
+hell," considers eminently sensible--the kind of life of which only an
+"arm-chair sentimentalist" would disapprove; a kind of life, it may be
+added, which will appear to most ordinarily minded people as being one
+of selfishness raised to its highest power.
+
+To begin with the earliest event in life. If a child, on its appearance
+in the world, appears to be in any way defective, its mother quietly
+kills it and deposits its body in the forest. If the mother dies in
+childbirth the child, unless someone takes pity on it and adopts it, is
+killed by the father, who, it may be presumed, is indisposed to take the
+trouble, perhaps indeed incapable of doing so, of rearing the motherless
+babe. That the child, in any case, immediately after birth, is plunged
+into cold water, is not perhaps a conscious method of eliminating the
+weak, though it must operate in that direction. At a later period of
+life should any disease believed to be infectious break out in a tribe,
+"those attacked by it are immediately left, even by their closest
+relatives, the house is abandoned, and possibly even burnt. Such
+derelict houses are no uncommon sight in the forest, grimly desolate
+mementoes of possible tragedies." When a person becomes insane, he is
+first of all exorcised by the medicine man, and if that fails is put to
+death by poison by the same functionary. The sick are dealt with on
+similar lines, unless there is or seems to be a probability of speedy
+recovery. "Cases of chronic illness meet with no sympathy from the
+Indians. A man who cannot hunt or fight is regarded as useless, he is
+merely a burden on the community." Under these circumstances he is
+either left at home untended or hunted out into the bush to die, or his
+end is accelerated by the medicine man. The same fate awaits the aged,
+unless they seem to be of value to the tribe on account of their wisdom
+and experience.
+
+All these things placed together give us a perfect picture of life under
+Natural Selection, and having studied it we may fairly ask whether such
+a rule of life is one under which any one of us would like to live. In
+every respect it is the antipodes of the Christian rule of life, and of
+that rule of life which civilised countries, whether in fact Christian
+or not, have derived from Christianity and still practise. The
+non-Christian rule of the Indians is one under which might is right and
+no real individual liberty exists, all personal rights being sacrificed
+to the supposed needs and benefit of the community.
+
+So much from the point of view of Natural Selection, but it would appear
+that those who have given up that factor as of anything but a very minor
+value, if even that, have also their rule of life founded on their
+interpretation of Nature. Thus Professor Bateson, the great exponent of
+Mendel's doctrines, who has told us in his Presidential Address to the
+British Association that we must think much less highly of Natural
+Selection than some would have us do, has, as has been set forth in the
+previous section of this essay, his opinion as to the rule of life which
+we should follow.
+
+Professor Conklyn, an American enthusiast for extreme eugenistic views,
+has also set down in print his ideas as to the lines on which our lives
+are to be run under a scientific domination, and these are to be dealt
+with in another article.[20] His scheme entails a forcible visit, not,
+it may be supposed, to the Altar, but to the Registry Office, for all
+persons held to be fit to perpetuate the race, and forcible restraint,
+whether by imprisonment or by sterilisation, for all others.
+
+The first thing which all these essays towards a scientific conduct of
+life reveal is a total want of perspective, for they proceed on the
+hypothesis--which no doubt their authors would defend--that this world
+and its concerns are everything, and that the intellectual and physical
+improvement of the human race by any measures, however harsh, is the
+"one thing needful." But beyond this the persons who hold such views
+seem to have entirely overlooked the fact that their proposed State
+would be one conducted on principles of the bitterest and most galling
+slavery imaginable by the mind of man, a form of slavery that never
+could persist if for a moment it be conceded that it could ever come
+into operation. The fact is that the whole thing is ludicrous when
+looked at from the point of view of common sense, but how few take the
+trouble to contemplate these schemes as they would be in operation! Were
+they thus to contemplate them, they would see that, apart altogether
+from any religious considerations, they are wholly impossible, even from
+a purely political point of view. That such ideas are intolerable to
+Catholic minds, indeed to any Christian mind, goes without saying.
+
+Driesch (_Science and Philosophy of the Organism_, vol. ii., p. 358) has
+pointed out very clearly that "the mechanical theory of life is
+incompatible with morality," and that it is impossible to feel "morally"
+towards other individuals if one knows that they are machines and
+nothing more. Again, Professor Henslow (in _Present Day Rationalism
+Critically Examined_, p. 253) very pertinently asks those who discard
+all religious considerations and claim to rely for guidance on the
+lessons of Nature, "If you have no taste for virtue, why be virtuous at
+all, so long as you do not violate the laws of the land?"
+
+Yet, in the face of these surely obvious facts, we find persons making
+such absurd claims as that made in a recent book by Rignano, an Italian
+writer (_Essays in Scientific Synthesis_, 1917). It is not often that
+one meets a book so full of philosophical fallacies as this. "We are
+certain of one fact," he says, "that the only organ actually brought
+into play to fight immorality is the organ of the collective conscience
+and not the religious organ." I suppose no more ludicrously inaccurate
+remark ever was set down in print; for, to begin with, the "collective
+conscience," whatever that may be, does not exist in Nature, _teste_ the
+farmyard and the fowl-run; and again, whatever force is connoted by
+those words must have been set agoing--by what? By Nature? Oh, most
+emphatically No! Nature has no law against immorality; there is no
+Categorical Imperative in Nature commanding us to be chaste or kindly or
+considerate or even just. We must go elsewhere if we are to look for
+teaching in the virtues. That is the fact that we must keep clearly
+before our minds when endeavouring to estimate at their proper value the
+nostrums of writers such as those with whose works we have been dealing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 1: Two addresses were delivered in 1914--one in
+  Melbourne, the other in Sydney. These will be referred to in
+  this article as M. & S.]
+
+  [Footnote 2: Sir Oliver Lodge: _Continuity_, p. 90.]
+
+  [Footnote 3: _Materials for the Study of Variation_, London,
+  1894.]
+
+  [Footnote 4: _The History and Theory of Vitalism_, p. 140.]
+
+  [Footnote 5: _Unconscious Memory._ Fifield. 1910.]
+
+  [Footnote 6: Those who desire further information may be
+  referred to _A Century of Scientific Thought_, by the present
+  writer. Burns & Oates.]
+
+  [Footnote 7: _Op. cit._, pp. 137-8.]
+
+  [Footnote 8: _The Philosophy of Biology_, p. 64.]
+
+  [Footnote 9: In an article in the volume _Darwin and Modern
+  Science_, p. 100.]
+
+  [Footnote 10: _Op. cit._, p. 319.]
+
+  [Footnote 11: _Op. cit._, pp. 238-9.]
+
+  [Footnote 12: See the discussion on this subject in Wasmann's
+  _The Problem of Evolution_.]
+
+  [Footnote 13: R. R. Marett, Presidential Address to Folk-Lore
+  Society, 1915. _Folk-Lore_, vol. xxvii., pp. 1-14.]
+
+  [Footnote 14: _The Kingdom of Man._ London: Constable & Co.
+  1907.]
+
+  [Footnote 15: Lankester, _op. cit._, p. 26.]
+
+  [Footnote 16: _Op. cit._, pp. 21-27.]
+
+  [Footnote 17: _My Life with the Eskimo_ (1913), p. 188.]
+
+  [Footnote 18: For a discussion of this question, see _Bernhardi
+  and Creation_, by Sir James Crichton-Browne, F.R.S. Glasgow:
+  James Maclehose & Sons. 1916.]
+
+  [Footnote 19: _The Northwest Amazons._ London: Constable & Co.
+  1915.]
+
+  [Footnote 20: _Science and the War_, p. 120.]
+
+
+
+
+II. THEOPHOBIA AND NEMESIS
+
+
+§ 1. THEOPHOBIA: ITS CAUSE
+
+_Initium sapientić timor Domini_; no doubt, but such fear is only the
+beginning, and is not the kind of fear--which also exists--a fear which
+engenders an actual revulsion against the idea of God.
+
+It is to this kind of fear which the eminent Jesuit writer Wasmann
+alludes when he says that "in many scientific circles there is an
+absolute _Theophobia_, a dread of the Creator. I can only regret this,"
+he continues, "because I believe that it is due chiefly to a defective
+knowledge of Christian philosophy and theology."
+
+That he is entirely right as to the existence of this feeling there can
+be no doubt; no one can read at all widely in scientific literature
+without becoming aware of it. Contrary to all the tenets of science
+there is even a bias against any such idea as that of a Creator, though
+science is supposed to confront all problems without bias of any kind. I
+need not cite instances of this feeling; I have dealt with it elsewhere.
+We may take it for granted, and proceed to look for an explanation for
+the phenomenon. Wasmann attributes it to ignorance, and he is, I feel
+sure, right; but let us examine the matter a little more closely. Why
+should persons--even if ignorant--have the bias which some obviously
+present against the idea of a God? Why should they wish to think that
+there is no such Being, no future existence, nothing higher than Nature?
+Some persons maintain that precedent to a denial of God there must be a
+moral failure. That I am sure is quite wrong. I should be far from
+saying that in some materialists there is not a considerable weakening
+of moral fibre, or perhaps it would be better put, a distortion of moral
+vision, as evidenced by many of the statements and proposals of
+eugenists, for example, and by the political nostrums of some who wrest
+science to a purpose for which it was not intended. This no doubt is
+true, but it is not quite the argument with which I am now dealing, and
+that argument, if it implies moral failure in the persons concerned, has
+little if any genuine foundation in fact. Mr. Devas, in that very
+remarkable book, _The Key to the World's Progress_, gives us the useful
+phrase "post-Christians." These people are really pagans living in the
+Christian era, retaining many of the excellent qualities which they owe
+neither to Nature nor to paganism, but to the inheritance--perhaps
+involuntary and unrecognised--of the influences of Christianity. Many of
+these people are kind, benevolent, scrupulously moral. They have not
+learned to be such from Nature, for Nature teaches no such lessons. Nor
+have they learnt them from paganism, for these are not pagan virtues.
+They are an inheritance from Christianity. Those, therefore, who build
+arguments as to the needlessness of religion on the foundation that
+persons without any belief in God do exhibit all the moral virtues,
+build on sand. At any rate the answer to the question which we are
+discussing is not to be found in this direction.
+
+Others again will perhaps maintain the thesis that fashion has a great
+deal to do with this. It is not fashionable to believe in God, or at
+least it was not. It was highly fashionable to call oneself an agnostic;
+perhaps it is not quite so much the vogue now as it was. No doubt there
+is something in this, though not very much. It is much easier to go with
+the tide than against it, and there are scientific tides as truly as
+there are tides in the fashion of dress. There was a Weismann tide, now
+nearly at dead water; there was an anti-vitalistic tide, now ebbing
+fast. When these were in full flow it was a hazardous thing for a young
+man who had to make his own way in the scientific world to swim against
+either or both of them. Fashions change, and fashion is not so set
+against the idea of a God as it was. The materialistic tide is "going
+out," and we shall see that there is some truth in the view which holds
+that the incoming tide is largely that of occultism, a thing disliked
+and despised--and indeed with some reason--by the materialistic school
+even more than it dislikes and despises theistic opinions.
+
+Fashion, however, is not in any way a complete answer to the question we
+are proposing to ourselves, nor is the unquestionable fact that
+scientific men have a strong objection to putting their trust in
+anything which cannot be subjected either to scientific examination or
+to experiment. In this attitude there is more than a germ of truth.
+"Occam's razor" is as valuable an implement to-day as it ever was, and
+everyone will admit that we must exhaust all known causes before we
+proceed to postulate a new one.
+
+We have gone beyond the day of the absurd statement that thought (which
+is of course unextended) is as much a secretion of the brain as bile
+(which, equally of course, is extended) is of the liver. No one nowadays
+would commit himself to such a statement, and men in general would be
+chary of urging that we should not believe anything which we cannot
+understand. I have myself heard a distinguished man of science of his
+day--he is dead this quarter of a century--make that statement in
+public, wholly ignoring the fact that any branch of science which we may
+pursue will supply us with a hundred problems we can neither understand
+nor explain, yet the factors of which we are bound to admit. But there
+is undoubtedly a dislike to accepting anything which cannot be proved by
+scientific means, and a tendency to describe as "mysticism"--a terrible
+and damning term to apply to anything, so its employers think!--any
+explanation which postulates something more in the universe than
+operations of a physical and chemical character.
+
+My own opinion is that the state of things which we are considering
+finds its explanation in history, and I propose to devote a short space
+to developing this view. Of course we might, and in some ways should,
+go back to the Reformation and to the destruction of religion which then
+took place. Let us, however, pass from that period to a time some
+hundred and fifty years ago and commence our investigations there, and
+in carrying them out I propose to make considerable use of the novels of
+different periods.
+
+It is a truism that very little but the dry bones of history can be
+learnt from histories.
+
+Nowadays people are sick of reading about more or less immoral monarchs,
+and more or less corrupt politicians, and it may be suspected that most
+of us have had our bellyful of wars now that the recent contest has come
+to an end. What one really wants to learn from history is how the
+ordinary folk, like ourselves, were getting on; what their ideas were;
+how the world wagged for them. Such information we are much more likely
+to get from memoirs and, since such works have been published, from
+novels. The novelist is not to be supposed to be committed to acceptance
+of all the remarks put into the mouths of his characters, but, if he is
+of the second, not to say the first flight (and, if he is not, he is not
+worth quoting), his characters and the general tone of his book will not
+be out of touch with the times to which they belong. Since the novel
+came into existence as something more than an occasional rarity, it is
+the novelists and not the players who are "the abstract and brief
+chronicles of the times," and it is to them that we shall apply for some
+of the information we desire.
+
+To commence with the Georgian period, it is not too much to say that
+anything like real religion was scarcely ever at a lower ebb in England.
+This is not to say that there was an absolute dearth of religion. Law
+wrote his _Serious Call_ during that period, and there are few books of
+its kind which have had a greater and more lasting effect. There were
+others of like but lesser character than Law, but, on the whole, no one
+will deny that the clergy of the Established Church (Catholics were, of
+course, in the catacombs) and the religion which they represented were
+almost beneath contempt. Look, for example, at _Esmond_, the typical
+novel of its period. Is there a single clergyman in it who is not an
+object of contempt, with the sole exception of the Jesuit, who, though a
+good deal of the stage variety, at least gains a measure of the reader's
+sympathy and respect? Thackeray was not himself a Georgian, it may be
+urged. That of course is true, but no one that knows Thackeray and knows
+also Georgian literature will deny that he was saturated with it and
+understood the period with which his book dealt better perhaps than
+those who lived in it themselves. But examine the novelists of the
+period; what about Fielding? Parson Adams is respectable and lovable,
+but the general average of parson and religion is certainly about as low
+as it can be. Fielding was not a religious man. Possibly, but what then
+of Richardson? We do not find religion at a very high level there; can
+anything well be more degraded than the figure cut by Mr. Williams in
+_Pamela_, for example--the miserable curate upon whom the heroine calls
+for help in her distress? But apart from that, look at the whole
+atmosphere of the book. Why, the moral is that if you resist the immoral
+onslaughts of your master long enough he will give in and marry you, and
+you will be applauded for your successful strategy by all the
+countryside. Such is the book which all agreed to praise as an example
+of all that a book ought to be from the point of view of virtue.
+
+It will be admitted by all conversant with the facts that religion could
+hardly have been at a lower ebb than it was when what is known as the
+Evangelical Movement came to trouble the placid, if stagnant and turbid,
+pool of the Established Church. Of course it did not transform the
+Church entirely. Read Miss Austen's novels: the most perfect pictures of
+life ever written. There are, I suppose, some half-dozen clergymen,
+pleasant and unpleasant, depicted in them, and we may be sure that they
+fairly well represent the typical average country parson of the period.
+Whatever they may otherwise be, they all agree in one point, namely in
+the complete absence of any such thing as a trace of spirituality. But
+in the early nineteenth-century Evangelicanism--specially that terrible
+variety Calvinism--was the dominant factor where religion really
+prevailed as a living influence; and it is to its influence, I firmly
+believe, that we may attribute the genuine detestation of religion which
+was so marked a feature of a part of the Victorian and most of the
+succeeding time. I am not, of course, forgetting the Oxford Movement,
+but, important as that was and is, in its earlier years it was almost
+entirely confined to clerical circles, exercising comparatively little
+influence on the laity and practically none at all on that great middle
+class which had been so much affected by the Wesleys, Whitefield, Scott,
+Newton, and the other pundits of Evangelicanism. Take the characteristic
+novel of the movement, if novel it should be called, Newman's _Loss and
+Gain_: I do not remember a single male character in it who is not in
+Holy Orders or on the way thereto. Hence, so far as religious influences
+are concerned, it is to the Evangelical Movement that we have to look.
+Now, though in my opinion it was the parent of many evils, there is no
+doubt that there was in it real fervour; intense devotion; a genuine
+desire to know and do God's will; a burning love for our Lord; coupled
+with all which were the most distorted and distorting ideas of what was
+and what was not sin ever conceived by any brain. Of this creed I can
+speak from personal knowledge, for I was brought up in it and know it
+from bitter experience.
+
+The exponents of these views were never tired of instilling into their
+pupils the need for conversion, which was supposed to be a sudden
+operation. I have heard persons name the exact moment by the clock and
+the day on which theirs took place, and it was often effected by a
+single text. I have seen the Bible of an eminent leader in this line
+which contains a number of texts painted round with colours, each of
+which was associated with the conversion of some particular individual.
+The process was supposed to be effected by the "acceptance of Christ,"
+and though it was said to be free to all, it was clear to some at least
+of those who quite earnestly and really desired it, that, however ardent
+their desires, they could not secure their realisation. One was supposed
+to know in some mysterious manner that one was converted; the operation
+was permanent in its character; it could not be repeated; once
+thoroughly effected the converted person neither wished to sin nor
+really did sin. If anyone supposed to have been converted did relapse
+into evil ways, then he never had really been converted, but only seemed
+to have been. I have heard this circular form of argument urged most
+strongly by those who were (by constitution apparently) absolutely
+unable to see the illogical position which they were taking up. A
+further, and the most awful, part of the teaching was that however much
+one desired to be converted, and however earnestly one prayed for it, if
+one died without it damnation was certain. Lastly there was the
+encouraging thought that everything done prior to conversion was equally
+without merit; in fact, one might almost say, equally evil. These things
+were dinned into the heads of the young, in season and out of season; is
+it any wonder that so many of them grew up to hate religion? I remember
+myself the positive terror with which I went out even to minor
+entertainments, because I knew that in all probability close
+interrogation would be made as to my spiritual condition.
+
+Let me be reminiscent and recall one case. I was a boy at school and
+spending my Easter vacation away from home and with friends. It was my
+lot to have to dine one night with an old friend of my father's, a
+person of some distinction, who having, I believe, been a _viveur_ in
+his youth, had in later years embraced the most ferocious type of
+Evangelicanism. When the ladies had retired I was left alone with this
+formidable person, whom I eyed much as a rabbit eyes a snake into whose
+cage he has been introduced. Nor were my fears groundless, for no sooner
+was the room empty than he peremptorily demanded of me whether I was
+saved. On hearing my trembling but perfectly truthful reply that I
+really did not know, he struck the table with his fist (I can see the
+whole thing quite plainly to-day, though it is five-and-forty years
+ago), exclaiming, "Then you are a fool, and if you were to die to-night
+you most certainly would be damned." I ask those who were brought up in
+a more kindly and more rational scheme of Christianity whether it is any
+wonder that those whose youth was spent in these gloomy shades should
+welcome the thought that there was no such being as a God?
+
+Associated with this gloomy creed a new series of sins was invented, as
+if there were not enough already in the world. It was sinful to dance,
+even under the most domestic and proper circumstances. It was a sin to
+play cards, even when there was no money on the game. It was a sin to
+go to the theatre, even to behold the most inspiring and instructive
+plays. It was even held by some, as we shall see, that the writing of
+stories or works of imagination was sinful. I once heard a professor of
+this creed express the doubt whether Shakespeare had not, on the whole,
+done much more harm than good, and state that he himself would not allow
+the works of Dickens to occupy a place in a hospital library, from
+which, as a matter of fact--for on this point the discussion had
+arisen--they had been excluded by the then chaplain of the institution,
+a man of like views. In fact, the idea of God which was presented to the
+youth of that period and brought up under such influences was--I do not
+say wilfully--that of a kind of super-policeman: a hard-hearted
+policeman, with an exaggerated code of misdoings, forever waiting round
+a corner to pounce on evil-doers, and, one was obliged to think,
+apparently almost pleased at the opportunity of catching them. It need
+not be said that no disrespect is intended in this. It is a simple and
+truthful statement of the kind of impression made upon one person by the
+teachings of that age and school. Is it any wonder that persons brought
+up in such a creed should experience a feeling of relief on learning
+that there was no God, no sin, no punishment? Add to this the terrors of
+the exaggerated Sabbatarianism of the period. What was the Sunday
+programme? Two lengthy sessions of Family Prayers; two attendances--each
+lasting at least an hour and a quarter--on services in church; one,
+sometimes two, hours of Sunday School; no books but those of a religious
+character; no amusements of any kind even for the very young, unless the
+putting together of a dissected map of Palestine could be called an
+amusement; what a method of rendering Sunday attractive to the young!
+
+Is it any wonder that those brought up on such a plan abandoned, with a
+sigh of relief, all religious exercises when at last they were able to
+do so? I notice that Mr. Belfort Bax, in his _Reminiscences of a Mid and
+Late Victorian_, alludes to this matter, saying that, "The most cruel of
+all the results of mid-Victorian religion was, perhaps, the rigid
+enforcement of the most drastic Sabbatarianism. The horror of the tedium
+of Sunday infected more or less the whole of the latter portion of the
+week." _Experto crede!_ He says further, dealing with the 'fifties, that
+"the intellectual possibilities of the English people were then stunted
+and cramped by the influence of the dogmatic Calvinistic theology which
+was the basis of its traditional sentiment;"--it is exactly the point
+which I am trying to make.
+
+We may now examine two instances of the kind of teaching with which I am
+dealing and its results. The first is that of the poet Cowper, and
+anyone who takes the trouble to read his life as written by Southey will
+find the whole piteous tale fully drawn out. Southey hated the Catholic
+Church, of which, by the way, he knew absolutely nothing, but he had
+sufficient sense to reject the teachings of Calvinism. Cowper was at
+times insane and at other times of anything but a well-balanced mind,
+and he was just the kind of man who never ought to have been brought
+under the influences to which he was subjected. His principal adviser
+was the Rev. John Newton, a well-known Calvinistic clergyman of the
+Church of England. He must have been a man of compelling character, for
+he it was who brought the Rev. Thomas Scott, Rector of Aston Sandford,
+out of Socinianism, which, though a minister of the Church of England,
+he professed, into the Calvinistic view of things, as Scott himself
+tells us in his book _The Force of Truth_; and it must not be forgotten
+that it was to the writings of this same Scott that Newman tells us (in
+his _Apologia_) that he owed his very soul. Newton, like many of his
+fellows, had no sort of doubt as to his right to act as a director of
+souls, nor of his profound knowledge of how they should be dealt with.
+Yet it is to be remembered that, whilst the Catholic priest is obliged
+to undergo a long and careful training before he is permitted to take up
+this perilous task, Newton and those of his kind undertook it without
+any training whatever. Cowper, as everybody knows, was carefully and
+kindly tended by Mrs. Unwin, a woman a good deal older than himself,
+against whose character no word of reproach was ever uttered, the widow
+of an old friend of the poet. Newton wanted to drive Mrs. Unwin out of
+his house, but here at least Cowper rebelled and showed his very just
+annoyance, Newton actually urged Cowper to abandon the task of
+translating Homer, a labour undertaken to distract his poor sick mind
+from thinking of itself, because such work, not being of a religious
+character, partook of the nature of sin. It is no wonder that such a
+rule of life had not infrequently the most distressing consequences.
+Newton himself admits that his preaching had the reputation of driving
+people into lunacy. In a letter asking that steps may be taken to remove
+one poor victim to an asylum he says: "I hope the poor girl is not
+without some concern for her soul; and, indeed, I believe a concern of
+this kind was the beginning of her disorder. I believe," he continues,
+"my name is up about the county for preaching people mad ... whatever
+may be the immediate cause, I suppose we have near a dozen, in different
+degrees, disordered in their heads, and most of them I believe truly
+gracious people."
+
+Let us turn to the other example which I propose to select, that given
+by Mr. Gosse in his truly remarkable work _Father and Son_, one of the
+most faithful pictures of life ever written. The first instance shall be
+an extract from the diary of the mother, obviously a woman of great
+power and gifts if she had been given an opportunity of displaying them.
+"When I was a very little child," she writes, "I used to amuse myself
+and my brothers with inventing stories such as I had read. Having, as I
+suppose, naturally a restless mind and busy imagination, this soon
+became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately my brothers were
+always fond of encouraging this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my
+maid, a still greater tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it,
+until Miss Shore" (a Calvinistic governess), "finding it out, lectured
+me severely, and told me it was wicked. From that time forth I
+considered that to invent a story of any kind was a sin. But the desire
+to do so was too deeply rooted in my affections to be resisted in my own
+strength," (she was at this time nine years of age), "and unfortunately
+I knew neither my corruption nor my weakness, nor did I know where to
+gain strength. The longing to invent stories grew with a violence;
+everything I heard or read became food for my distemper. The simplicity
+of truth was not sufficient for me; I must needs embroider imagination
+upon it, and the folly, vanity and wickedness which disgraced my heart,
+are more than I am able to express. Even now (at the age of
+twenty-nine), though watched, prayed and striven against, this is still
+the sin which most easily besets me. It has hindered my prayers and
+prevented my improvement, and therefore has humbled me very much." It is
+narrated of the well-known Father Healy that a young lady having
+consulted him as to the sin of vanity, she feeling convinced, when she
+looked in her glass, that she was a very pretty girl, was answered by
+him, "My child, that is not a sin; it is a mistake!" It wanted some wise
+adviser to make the same remark to this poor tortured and deluded woman.
+
+Illness under this code was always a punishment sent from heaven, as,
+indeed, it may be; but, "if anyone was ill it showed that 'the Lord's
+hand was extended in chastisement,' and much prayer was poured forth in
+order that it might be explained to the sufferer, or to his relations,
+in what he or they had sinned. People would, for instance, go on living
+over a cesspool, working themselves up into an agony to discover how
+they had incurred the displeasure of the Lord, but never moving away."
+One last instance, the most remarkable of all, and we may leave this
+book. It need hardly be said that a father of the kind depicted in this
+book would have a holy horror of the Catholic Church, and he had. He
+"welcomed any social disorder in any part of Italy, as likely to be
+annoying to the Papacy." He "celebrated the announcement in the
+newspapers of a considerable emigration from the Papal dominions, by
+rejoicing at this outcrowding of many, throughout the harlot's domain,
+from her sin and her plagues," and he even carried his hatred so far as
+to denounce the keeping of Christmas, which to him was nothing less than
+an act of idolatry.
+
+On a certain Christmas Day, the servants, greatly daring, disobeyed the
+order of their master and actually had the audacity to make a small
+plum-pudding for themselves. Actuated by pity, no doubt, and by a
+feeling of kindness towards a small boy deprived of all the joys of the
+season, they pressed a slice of this pudding upon the son, who
+succumbed--very naturally--to the temptation. Shortly after, however,
+being afflicted by a stomach-ache, remorse came upon him and he rushed
+to his father, exclaiming: "Oh! papa, papa, I have eaten of flesh
+offered to idols!" When the father learned what had happened, he sternly
+said, "Where is the accursed thing?" Having heard that it was on the
+kitchen table, "he took me by the hand, and ran with me into the midst
+of the startled servants, seized what remained of the pudding, and with
+the plate in one hand and me still tight in the other, ran till we
+reached the dust-heap, where he flung the idolatrous confectionery on to
+the middle of the ashes, and then raked it deep down into the mass. The
+suddenness, the velocity of this extraordinary act, made an impression
+on my memory which nothing will ever efface." Such is a plain
+unvarnished account of the kind of way in which numbers of people were
+brought up in the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. Can it be
+wondered that those who had such a childhood should grow up with an
+absolute horror of the Person in Whose name such things--absurdities
+when not positive crimes--were perpetrated? I firmly believe that these
+wholly false ideas of God and of sin have had more to do with the spread
+of materialism than many will perhaps be disposed to admit. Educated
+people, especially those trained in scientific methods, demand a certain
+common sense and sobriety in their beliefs. If they are brought up to
+believe that a grievous sin is committed when they invent an innocent
+story; when they go to a theatre or to a dance, or play a game of cards;
+if they have never known the demands of real Christianity as put
+forward by the Catholic Church, is it likely that they will cleave to a
+faith which apparently engenders such absurdities as the Christmas
+pudding episode? It is, indeed, as Father Wasmann says, a thousand
+pities that the reasonableness, the logic, the dignity of the Catholic
+religion should remain for ever hidden from the eyes and minds of many
+who so often are as they are, because they were brought up as they were.
+In all these things we find the key to another problem. In another essay
+in this volume I have called attention to the glad intelligence, as it
+seems to a certain school of writers, that we are freed from the
+"bugbear of sin," as one of them puts it; able to enjoy ourselves
+without any thoughts of that kind.
+
+Now I cannot but believe that such writers are thinking of the bugbear
+of artificial sins invented by the professors of a gloomy creed of
+religion. It is not to be supposed that any serious writer--and those to
+whom I allude are eminently such--would speak or write with pleasure and
+satisfaction of escaping from the bugbear of sins against morality or
+against one's neighbour; from the bugbear of dishonesty or theft; of
+taking away a person's character; of running away with his wife. I am
+convinced that it is the invented crimes of card-playing, theatre-going,
+and the like to which they are alluding: it could not surely be
+otherwise; and that makes it all the more unfortunate that before
+misusing a technical term like the word "sin," and thus perhaps
+misleading some young and ardent mind, such writers could not follow
+Father Wasmann's advice and study some simple manual of Catholic ethics,
+from which they would learn the real doctrine of Christianity and would
+discover how very different a thing it is and how very much more
+reasonable than the distorted caricature which we have been studying.
+
+
+§ 2. THEOPHOBIA: ITS NEMESIS
+
+Whether my view as to the cause, or one of the causes, is right or not,
+the fact remains that by the mid-Victorian period England had fallen to
+a very large extent a prey to materialism. Many people attribute the
+sudden onslaught of this to the publication of _The Origin of Species_
+and the controversies of the foolish which followed thereon. Samuel
+Butler, that brilliant writer who has not even yet come into his own,
+sums up in his novel _The Way of All Flesh_ (and it may incidentally be
+remarked, in himself) most of the characteristics of the day. Many a
+parsonage home like that of the Rev. Theobald Pontifex existed in those
+days, and more than one Ernest Pontifex emerged from them. Now in this
+book Butler states that "the year 1858 was the last of a term during
+which the peace of the Church of England was singularly unbroken," and
+there no doubt he is right; "The Evangelical Movement ... had become
+almost a matter of ancient history. Tractarianism had subsided into a
+tenth-day's wonder; it was at work, but it was not noisy." Then he says
+the calm was broken by the publication of three books: _Essays and
+Reviews_, _The Origin of Species_, _Criticisms on the Pentateuch_ by
+Colenso. Few persons probably now remember the first and the last of
+these books; the fame of the second is likely to last long.
+
+Whether again Butler is right in his idea as to the causes or not, as to
+the fact there can be no doubt. We have arrived at a period when the
+prevalent opinion amongst the intellectual classes was that
+religion--belief in anything which could not be fully understood--was
+impossible once one began to think seriously about it. Those who did not
+really look into such questions might go on considering themselves to
+believe in revelation, but the moment that a man seriously tackled the
+subject, his religion was bound to go, just as that of Ernest Pontifex
+did at the end of five minutes' conversation with an atheistic
+shoemaker.[21] Agnosticism and materialism were in the air, and remained
+the dominant features for quite a number of years. There were those who
+deplored the loss of their faith such as it had been. Huxley obviously
+did; and Romanes, who afterwards returned to the Church of England,
+confessedly did. Such persons, and there were many of them, honestly
+were unable to believe, and said so. A great deal of this was due to the
+attitude of popular science at that time. It was in a hot fit, and was
+going to explain everything, if not to-day, at least to-morrow. Now, as
+Sir Oliver Lodge told us before the war, in his book _Continuity_, we
+are in a cold fit and we seem only to know that nothing can be known.
+Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known as the creator of _Sherlock Holmes_,
+tells us in a recent book from which I shall have further to quote (_The
+New Revelation_, Hodder and Stoughton, 1918): "When I had finished my
+medical education in 1882, I found myself, like many young medical men,
+a convinced materialist as regards our personal destiny." With the facts
+contained in this statement I fully agree. The date in question is
+almost exactly that at which I also became a qualified medical man, and
+I, and I fancy most of my generation, believed ourselves to be agnostics
+if not atheists. It was the atmosphere of the time, and so strong as
+with difficulty to be resisted by those who resorted to the
+Universities. The point which I want to make is that during the latter
+part of the Victorian period we had come to a generation of
+intellectuals practically devoid of religion and followed in that
+respect by that always larger portion of any generation which, not
+having brains to think for itself, yet desiring to follow the
+intellectual _motif_ of the day, adopts whatever is the fashionable
+attitude for the moment towards unseen things. Yesterday it was blank
+negation; to-day it tends, as we shall see, to be spiritualism;
+to-morrow it might be earnest faith: let us hope so. And as to
+Calvinism, all this was _post hoc_ of course; _propter hoc_ also as I
+think.
+
+What followed? That is what we now have to consider. The first thing
+which happened was the very natural discovery that science cannot
+explain everything; has in fact a strictly limited range of country to
+deal with. This discovery began to sap the foundations of materialism.
+Then there came the further discovery that all was not well, as so many
+supposed that it would be, under a scheme of life divorced from all
+connection with religion. Mr. Lucas, who has given the world many
+pleasant books, none of them with any obvious bias in favour of
+religion, in _Over Bemertons_ (one of the most pleasant) makes one of
+his characters, _Mr. Dabney_, deplore the loss of the seriousness of the
+Victorian era: "We believe only in pleasure and success; our one ideal
+is getting wealth." Parenthetically, is not that just what might be
+expected? If there is really nothing but this world, what better can we
+seek than as much pleasure as we can get out of it? _Over Bemertons_ was
+first published in 1908, and the remedy which _Mr. Dabney_ then
+suggested, with a really curious prophetical insight, has just been
+vigorously applied. That remedy was "War, nothing more or less. A bloody
+war--not a punitive expedition or 'a sort of a war'" (he quoted these
+words with white fury) "'that might get us right again.' 'At great
+cost,' I said. 'A surgical operation,' he replied, 'if the only means
+of saving life, cannot be called expensive.'"
+
+Finally the discovery was made that mankind will not for long be content
+to do altogether without religion; a need for something more than bread
+alone being ingrained in his nature. Thus even the professedly
+materialistic societies try to afford something in the way of religious
+exercises. I have recently seen a notice of one of the so-called Ethical
+Societies in which the members (at their meetings, I take it) are
+"requested to silently meditate for five minutes on the good life."[22]
+It would seem to be quite as beneficial and more practical to meditate
+on split infinitives. A substitute for religion has to be found; what is
+it to be? In the years before the war Mr. Masefield published a very
+interesting book called _Multitude and Solitude_, which narrates the
+trials and troubles of two young Englishmen who make a perilous journey
+to Africa in search of the secret of the sleeping-sickness. In all their
+trials they never seem to have thought of prayer, in which it may be
+assumed they did not believe, but when they returned to England it
+occurred to one of them that there was something wanting in their life,
+and he propounded to his friend the view that "the world is just coming
+to see that science is not a substitute for religion," which is one of
+the things urged in this paper. He then proceeded to the rather
+startling conclusion that science _is_ "religion of a very deep and
+austere kind." One is reminded of a well-known passage in the Bible:
+"_Inveni et aram in qua scriptum erat_ IGNOTO DEO." To set up science as
+an "unknown God" seems a curious choice, even more curious than the
+choice of humanity, which--pitiable object as it is--was at least made
+in the image of God. Not to pile up instance upon instance, let us
+content ourselves with remembering that Mr. Wells, who in his earlier
+novels had certainly not displayed any marked affection for religion, in
+the last published before the war (_Marriage_) brings his hero face to
+face with the great realities, and makes him exclaim to his wife that he
+may "die a Christian yet," and urge upon her the need for prayer, if
+only out into the darkness. Of course, as all the reading world knows,
+since the war commenced, Mr. Wells has set up his own altar "IGNOTO
+DEO," not with much more satisfactory results than those attained by Mr.
+Masefield. It is an historical fact that times of war have also been
+times of religious awakening, and it is natural that they should be so,
+for even the most careless must be brought to contemplate something more
+than the day's enjoyment. It is not then wonderful that the terrible war
+which has raged with Europe as the cockpit, and practically all the
+nations of the world as participants, should turn the minds of those who
+are in the righting line towards thoughts which in times of peace may
+never have found entrance there. From all sides one hears that this is
+so, yet here again it is too often the case that an "unknown God" is
+sought, and from want of proper direction not always found. In a
+recently published memoir of one of the many splendid young fellows by
+whose death the world has been made poorer during this calamitous war,
+there is this moving passage: "I know that many hearts are turning
+towards _something_, but cannot find satisfaction in what the Christian
+sects offer. And many, failing to find what they need, fall back sadly
+into vague uncertainties and disbelief, as I often do myself." We badly
+need a St. Paul who will say to these and other anxious hearts, "_Quod
+ergo ignorantes colitis, hoc ego annuntio vobis_."
+
+However, it is much more with those who only "stand and wait" than with
+those who were actually in the trenches that we are concerned; what
+about the lamentable army of wives and mothers, widows and orphans,
+people bereft of those they loved or rising every morning in dread of
+the news which the day might bring forth; what about these and their
+attitude towards the things unseen? That many such have turned to some
+genuine form of religion is happily beyond dispute, but it is also
+unquestionably true that thousands have turned aside to the attractions
+of spiritualism. A recent article in the Literary Supplement of the
+_Times_ commenced with the statement that "Among the strange, dismaying
+things cast up by the tide of war are those traces of primitive
+fatalism, primitive magic, and equivocal divination which are within
+general knowledge." The writer of the article in question thinks that
+as we have taken a huge and lamentable step backwards in civilisation,
+we need not be surprised that we should also have receded in the
+direction of those primitive instincts to which he calls attention. This
+process had, however, begun long before the war.
+
+The late Dr. Ryder, Provost of the Birmingham Oratory, was a very shrewd
+observer of public affairs and a very close and dear friend of the
+present writer. It must be more than twenty years ago since he remarked
+to me that he thought that materialism had shot its bolt and that the
+coming danger to religion was spiritualism, a subject on which, if I
+remember right, he had written more than one paper. I asked him what led
+him to that conclusion, and his reply was to ask me whether I had not
+noticed the great increase in number of the items in second-hand book
+catalogues--a form of literature to which we were both much
+addicted--under the heading "OCCULT." Since the war, however, there can
+be no doubt about the fact that spiritualism has made great strides. A
+thousand pieces of evidence prove it. Look, for example, at the enormous
+vogue of _Raymond_, a book of which I say nothing, out of personal
+regard for its author and genuine respect for his honesty and
+fearlessness. But I return to Sir Arthur Doyle's book, and we find him
+assuring us that he is personally "in touch with thirteen mothers who
+are in correspondence with their dead sons," and adds that in only one
+of these cases was the individual concerned with psychic matters before
+the war. Further, he explains that it was the war which induced him to
+take an active interest in a subject which had been before no more than
+one of passing curiosity. "In the presence of an agonised world," he
+writes, "hearing every day of the deaths of the flower of our race in
+the first promise of their unfulfilled youth, seeing around one the
+wives and mothers who had no clear conception whither their loved one
+had gone to, I seemed suddenly to see that this subject with which I had
+so long dallied was not merely a study of a force outside the rules of
+science, but that it really was something tremendous, a breaking down of
+the walls between the two worlds, a direct undeniable message from
+beyond, a call of hope and of guidance to the human race at the time of
+its deepest affliction." Perhaps it is not wonderful that spiritualism
+should have won the success which it has, for it offers a good deal to
+those who can believe in it. It offers definite intercourse with the
+departed; positive knowledge as to the existence of a future state, and
+even as to its nature--the last-named intelligence not always very
+attractive. Further, it requires no particular creed and, it would
+appear, no special code of morals; for one of its teachings, I gather,
+is that it does not greatly matter what a man thinks or even does, so
+far as his future welfare is concerned.
+
+Sir A. Doyle's book is the least convincing exposition of spiritualism I
+have yet read--and I have studied many of them--but it may be taken to
+include the latest views on the subject. Amongst the revelations which
+he gives, there is one purporting to come from a spirit who "had been a
+Catholic and was still a Catholic, but had not fared better than the
+Protestants; there were Buddhists and Mahommedans in her sphere, but all
+fared alike." Another spirit informed Sir A. Doyle that he had been a
+freethinker, but "had not suffered in the next life for that reason."
+This is not the occasion, and in no way am I the man, to tackle the
+subject of spiritualism, but this at least I think may be said, that the
+person who argues that the whole thing is a fraud and deception does not
+know what he is talking about. Look at the history of the world--_Quod
+semper_, _quod ubique_, almost _quod ab omnibus_. The records of early
+missionaries--Jesuits especially--teem with accounts of the same kind of
+phenomena as we read of in connection with séances to-day, occurring in
+all sorts of places and amongst widely separated races of mankind. We
+have it in the _Odyssey_; we have it in Cicero and in Pliny; we have it
+in the Bible. All this is not a mere matter of imposition.
+
+In a very curious book recently published (_Some Revelations as to
+"Raymond_," by a Plain Citizen; London, Kegan Paul), to which some
+attention may now be devoted, the writer, himself a firm believer in
+spiritualism and one obviously in a position to write about it, points
+out that the old term "magic" has been relegated to the performances of
+conjurers, and the terminology so altered as to make spiritualism appear
+to be a new gospel, whereas the contrary is the case. "The impression
+prevailed that civilised people were in presence of a new order of
+phenomena, and were acquiring a new outlook into the regions of the
+Unknown; whereas the truth was that they were merely repeating, under
+new social conditions and in a new environment, the same experiences
+that had happened to their ancestors during some thousands of years."
+Here I may interject the remark that as far as my reading and knowledge
+go, no spirit has ever had a good word to say for the Catholic religion.
+What that Church thinks about spiritualism has been made quite clear,
+and that is enough for Catholics. Before leaving the Plain Citizen, we
+must not omit to notice one strange hypothesis of his, all the stranger
+as coming from a professed spiritualist. He maintains--perhaps it would
+be fairer to say that he lays down as a working hypothesis--the
+following thesis: Spiritualism involves the existence of mediums, and
+mediums for the most part have to make their living by their operations.
+They will not be averse to making their incomes as large as possible.
+For the purpose of acquiring information as to the affairs of possible
+clients, they have, so he asserts, an almost Freemasonic Association by
+which all sorts of pieces of intelligence concerning persons of
+importance are collected and disseminated amongst the brotherhood. It
+did not require much imagination to suppose that the war would add to
+the number of their clients, whether their claims had real foundation or
+not; what they wanted above all things was some one of undoubted
+position who would "boom the movement," in the slang of the day. They
+laid all their plans to get their man in the author of _Raymond_, and
+they got him. Such is his thesis for what it is worth.
+
+However, it is time to conclude. What I wanted to show was that
+Theophobia was the Nemesis of a dreadful type of Protestantism, and that
+spiritualism was the Nemesis of the materialism associated with that
+Theophobia. There is no need to point out to Catholic readers where the
+remedy lies, and where the real Communion of the saints is to be found.
+They are not likely to be drawn aside by the "Lo here!" of the "false
+Christs" whom we were promised and whom we are getting. It is for those
+who have themselves experienced the consolations of the Catholic
+religion to do their best, each in his own way, to make known to others
+outside our body what things may be found within.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 21: An excellent example may be found in Butler's own
+  career. Destined for the ministry of the Church of England
+  (with his own full consent), he was set to teach a class in a
+  Sunday school. Finding that some of his pupils were unbaptized,
+  yet no worse-behaved than the others, and obviously quite
+  ignorant of what baptism meant, he abandoned all belief. His
+  biographer, equally ignorant, in narrating, with approval, this
+  change of opinion, says, "Paley had produced evidence of
+  Christianity, but none so unmistakable as this to the
+  contrary."]
+
+  [Footnote 22: Dr. Johnson once remarked that "to find a
+  substitution for violated morality was the leading feature in
+  all perversions of religion."]
+
+
+
+
+III. WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE SYSTEM
+
+
+Exclusive and long-continued devotion to any special line of study is
+liable to lead to forgetfulness of other, even kindred, lines--almost,
+in extreme cases, to a kind of atrophy of other parts of the mind. There
+is the example of Darwin and his self-confessed loss of the ćsthetic
+tastes he once possessed. Nor are scientific studies the only ones to
+produce such an effect. The amusing satire in _The New Republic_ has,
+perhaps, lost some of its tang now that the prototype of its Professor
+of History is almost forgotten, but it has not lost its point. Lady
+Ambrose tells the tale: "He said to me in a very solemn voice, 'What a
+terrible defeat that was which we had at Bouvines!' I answered
+timidly--not thinking we were at war with anyone--that I had seen
+nothing about it in the papers. 'H'm!' he said, giving a sort of grunt
+that made me feel dreadfully ignorant, 'why, I had an excursus on it
+myself in the _Archćological Gazette_ only last week.' And, do you know,
+it turned out that the Battle of Bouvines was fought in the Thirteenth
+Century, and had, as far as I could make out, something to do with Magna
+Charta."
+
+It is, however, among writers on biological subjects that we find the
+most salient instances of this contraction. With extraordinary
+self-abnegation they seem, in the contemplation of the problem with
+which they are concerned, to forget that they themselves are living
+things, and, more than that, the living things of whom they ought to
+know and could know most, however little that most may be. When the
+biologist begins to philosophise as, after the manner of his kind, he
+often does, he should leave his microscope and look around him; whereas
+he often forgets even to change the high for the low power. Thus he
+limits his field of vision and forgets, when attempting his explanation,
+that it is only _within a system_ that he is working. Professor Ward, in
+_Naturalism and Agnosticism_, says:
+
+     "From the strict premisses of Positivism we can never prove
+     the existence of other minds or find a place for such
+     conceptions as cause and substance; for into these premisses
+     the existence of our own mind and its self-activity have not
+     entered. And accordingly we have seen Naturalism led on in
+     perfect consistency to resolve man into an automaton that
+     goes of itself as part of a still vaster automaton, Nature
+     as mechanically conceived, which goes of itself. True, this
+     mechanism goes of itself because it _is_ going, and being
+     altogether inert, cannot stop or change. How it ever started
+     is indeed a question which science cannot answer, but which,
+     on the other hand, it has no occasion to ask: time, its one
+     independent variable, extends indefinitely without hint of
+     either beginning or end. Such a system of knowledge, _once
+     we are inside it_, so to say, is entirely self-contained and
+     complete."
+
+"_Once we are inside it!_" what so many writers forget or ignore is that
+they _are_ inside it, and that their explanations do not explain the
+system or how it came to be there or to be in operation. Everybody is
+familiar with Paley's example of the watch found on the heath. Let us
+carry it a little further. Suppose some student, after devoting years of
+patient examination to the watch, were to come forward and say: "I have
+discovered the secret of this watch. There is a spring in it which
+possesses resiliency, and it is that which drives the wheels. I think I
+have heard people say that there must have been a watchmaker to design
+and construct this piece of machinery, but, in face of my discoveries,
+any such explanation is wholly unnecessary and may be altogether
+abandoned."
+
+Perhaps this analogy may be regarded as exaggerated; but, before thus
+condemning it, let the following passage be studied. It is from a very
+important book recently published, which claims (and has had its claim
+supported by many periodicals) to have done away with any need for an
+explanation of life beyond that which can be given by chemistry and
+physics, Jacques Loeb's _Organism as a Whole, from a Physico-Chemical
+Viewpoint_.
+
+It would be hard to find a worse example of confused thinking than that
+of the following passage:
+
+     "The idea that the organism as a whole cannot be explained
+     from a physico-chemical viewpoint rests most strongly on the
+     existence of animal instincts and will. Many of the
+     instinctive actions are 'purposeful,' _i.e._ assisting to
+     preserve the individual and the race. This again suggests
+     'design' and a designing 'force,' which we do not find in
+     the realm of physics. We must remember, however, that there
+     was a time when the same 'purposefulness' was believed to
+     exist in the cosmos where everything seemed to turn
+     literally and metaphorically around the earth, the abode of
+     man. In the latter case, the anthropo- or geo-centric view
+     came to an end when it was shown that the motions of the
+     planets were regulated by Newton's law, _and that there was
+     no room left for the activities of a guiding power_.
+     Likewise, in the realm of instincts, when it can be shown
+     that these instincts may be reduced to elementary
+     physico-chemical laws, the assumption of design becomes
+     superfluous." (_Italics mine._)
+
+In the first place the "purposefulness" of the movements of the planets
+is not affected in the very least by the question of heliocentricism.
+What the author is probably thinking of is an exaggerated and obsolete
+teleology, but that is not what seems to be the purport of the passage.
+Let that pass. The main confusion lies in the application of the term
+"Law." The Ten Commandments, and our familiar friend D.O.R.A., are laws
+we must obey or take the consequences of our disobedience. The "laws"
+which the writer is dealing with are not anything of this kind. Newton's
+Law is not a thing made by Newton, but an orderly system of events which
+was in existence long before Newton's time, but was first demonstrated
+by him. It tells us how a certain part of the system works--when we are
+"_inside it_." It does not in the least explain the system any more than
+the discovery of the resiliency of the spring of the watch explains the
+watch itself. So far from dispensing with "the activities of a guiding
+power," Newton's law is positively clamant for a final explanation,
+since it does not tell us, nor does it pretend to tell us, how the "law"
+came into existence, still less how the planets came to be there, or how
+they happen to be in a state of motion at all. Writers of this kind
+never seem to have grasped the significance of such simple matters as
+the different kinds of causes, or to be aware that a formal cause is not
+an efficient cause, and that neither of them is a final cause. Coming to
+the latter part of the paragraph, it is in no way proved that instincts
+can be reduced to physico-chemical laws, and, suppose it were proved,
+the assumption of design would be exactly where it is at this moment. It
+is the old story of St. Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna and their discussion
+on abiogenesis, and surely biologists might be expected to have heard of
+that. The same confusion of thought is to be met with elsewhere in this
+book, and in other similar books, and a few instances may now be
+examined.
+
+Samuel Butler, in _Life and Habit_, warns his readers against the dicta
+of scientific men, and more particularly against his own dicta, though
+he made no claim to be a scientist. If his reader _must_ believe in
+something, "let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting of
+Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's first
+Epistle to the Corinthians." And he exclaims: "Let us have no more 'Lo,
+here!' with the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows;
+no sooner has he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great
+flourish of trumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than
+himself." That is a somewhat unkind way of putting it; but undoubtedly
+theory after theory is put forward, and often claimed to be final, only
+to disappear when another explanation takes its place. Thus at the
+moment we are in the full flood of the chemical theory which is employed
+to explain inheritance. That heredity exists we all know, but so far we
+know nothing about its mechanism. Darwin, with "Pangenesis," and others,
+using other titles, argued in favour of a "particulate" explanation, but
+the number of particles which would be necessary to account for the
+phenomena involved, this and other difficulties, have practically put
+this explanation out of court. Then we had the Mnemic theory of Hering,
+Butler, and others, by which the unconscious memory of the embryo--even
+the germ--is the explanation. Quite lately the mnemic theory has been
+claimed by Rignano in his _Scientific Synthesis_ as a complete
+explanation, in forgetfulness of the fact that even the all-powerful
+protozoon can only remember what has passed and could certainly not
+_remember_ that it was some day going to breed a man. At the moment,
+things are explained on a chemical basis, though that basis is far from
+firm; is of a shifting nature, and a little hazy in details. Some time
+ago, colloids were the cry. A President of the British Association
+almost led one to imagine that "the homunculus in the retort" might be
+expected in a few weeks. But the chemists would have none of this, and
+denied that the colloids, about which they ought to know more than do
+the biologists, had that promise in them which had been claimed. We had
+Leduc and his "fairy flowers," as now we have Loeb and others with their
+metabolites and hormones. As to these last, there seems to be no kind of
+doubt that the internal secretions of many organs and structures have
+effects which were, even a few years ago, quite unsuspected. Those of
+the thyroid and adrenals are excellent examples.
+
+It seems to be the fate, however, of all supporters of new theories to
+run into extravagances. Darwin had to remind his enthusiastic disciples
+that Natural Selection could not create variations, and we may feel some
+confidence that Hering, were he alive, would urge his followers to bear
+in mind that memory cannot create a state of affairs which never
+existed. So far we may certainly say that these internal secretions do
+produce certain physical effects, some of them effects not to be
+suspected by the uninformed reader. There seems to be very good evidence
+that the growth of antlers in deer depends upon an internal secretion
+from the sex-gland and from the interstitial tissue of that gland; for
+it is apparently upon the secretions of this portion of the gland that
+the secondary sexual characters depend, and not merely these, but also
+the normal sexual instincts. And this takes us a stage further. The
+extreme claim is that all instincts, in fact all thoughts and
+operations, are in the last analysis chemical or chemico-physical. Let
+us examine this claim for a moment. The adrenals are two inconspicuous
+ductless bodies situated immediately above the kidneys. Not many years
+ago, when the present writer was a medical student, all that was known
+about these organs was that when stricken with a certain disease, known
+as Addison's disease from the name of its first describer, the
+unfortunate possessor of the diseased glands became of a more or less
+rich chocolate colour. To-day we know that the internal secretion of
+these organs is a very powerful styptic, and there is good reason to
+believe that a copious discharge accompanies an unusual exhibition of
+rage. When we are told things of this kind we must first of all remember
+that the adrenalin does not cause the rage, though it may produce its
+concomitant phenomena. If a man flies into a violent passion because
+someone has trodden upon his corns, and there is a copious flow of
+adrenalin from the glands, it is not that flow which has caused his
+rage. It may be the flow from the interstitial tissue of the sex-glands
+which engenders sexual feelings, but then those are almost wholly
+physical, and only in a very minor sense--if even if any true
+sense--psychical. Persons who take the extreme view have never yet
+suggested that there is a characteristic hormone connected with those
+psychical attributes alluded to in the chapter of the Corinthians
+recommended to our notice by Butler. In fact they seem to ignore all but
+the lower or vegetable characters when dealing with psychology from the
+chemico-physical point of view.
+
+Finally, we come again to the fatal and fundamental defect of this as of
+other "explanations"; it is an explanation "_within the system_," and
+therefore unphilosophical in so far as it fails to explain the facts
+through their ultimate or deepest reasons.
+
+A large part of Loeb's book is devoted to a description of the author's
+remarkable experiments in artificial parthenogenesis, and an attempt to
+show that they offer a complete explanation. Sir William Tilden, one of
+the greatest living authorities on organic chemistry, tells us that "too
+much has been made of the curious observations of J. Loeb and others";
+and he definitely states that when we consider "the propagation of the
+animal races by the sexual process ... there can be no fear of
+contradiction in the statement that in the whole range of physical and
+chemical phenomena there is no ground for even a suggestion of an
+explanation." Behind this pronouncement of an expert, one might well
+shelter oneself; but the question under consideration merits a little
+further treatment. The reproduction of kind, though usually a bi-sexual
+process, may, however, normally in rare cases be uni-sexual, and this
+process is known as Parthenogenesis. Even in human beings certain
+tumours of the sex-glands, known as teratomata, very rare in women and
+even rarer, if ever existent, in men, have been claimed as examples of
+attempts at parthenogenesis, and so far no better explanation is
+available.
+
+Now Loeb and others have succeeded in certain forms--even in a
+vertebrate like the frog--in inducing development in unimpregnated ova.
+The evidence for all these things is still slender; but we will content
+ourselves with noting that point and passing on to the consideration of
+the phenomena and the claims put forward in connection with them. We
+find the task of unravelling the writer's meaning rendered more
+difficult by a certain confusion in his use of terms, since
+fertilisation, _i.e._ syngamy--the union of the different sex
+products--seems to be confused with segmentation, _i.e._ germination;
+and this confusion is accentuated by the claim that "the main effect of
+the spermatozoon in inducing the development of the egg consists in an
+alteration in the surface of the latter which is apparently of the
+nature of a cytolysis of the cortical layer. Anything that causes this
+alteration without endangering the rest of the egg may induce its
+development." When the spermatozoon enters the ovum it causes some
+alteration in the surface membrane of the latter which, amongst other
+things, prevents the entrance of further spermatozoa. Loeb thinks that
+in causing this alteration it sets up the segmentation of the ovum. That
+there is a close connection between the two events seems undoubted; that
+they are in relation of cause and effect seems likely. It is quite
+evident that an artificial stimulus can in certain cases set up
+segmentation, but never can it cause the fertilisation of the ovum. It
+may very likely produce the same change in the membrane that is caused
+by the entrance of the spermatozoon under normal circumstances--membrane
+formation may be necessarily coincident with the liberation in the egg
+of some zymose which arises from a pre-existent zymogen. But we are
+still some way off any assurance that the _main_ object of the
+spermatozoon in inducing the development of the egg is this surface
+alteration. It may be the initial effect; very probably it is; but since
+the main function of the spermatozoon must be the introduction of
+germplasm from the male parent, it is too much for anyone to ask us to
+believe that its _main_ function is concerned with surface alteration.
+
+Loeb argues that the change in the surface membrane is of a chemical
+character, and that no doubt may be correct; but even if we allow him
+every scientific fact, or surmise, he is still, as in the other cases
+with which we have dealt, miles away from any real explanation. He is
+still inside his chemico-physical explanation to begin with; and, even
+within that, he still leaves us anxious for the explanation of a number
+of points--for example, as to the nature of the chemical process which
+accompanies, or is the cause of, segmentation. We in no way press these
+questions; for similar demands could be made in so many cases; we only
+indicate that they are there. What we do press is this--that when an
+authority comes forward to assure us that all the processes of life,
+including man's highest as well as his lowest attributes, can be
+explained on chemico-physical lines, we are entitled to ask for a more
+cogent proof of it than the demonstration, however complete, of the
+germination of an egg, caused by artificial stimulus and not by the
+ordinary method of syngamy, even though that germination may lead to the
+production of a perfect adult form. We are entitled to ask him to make
+clear to us not only what is happening _within his system_, but--which
+is far more important--what that system is, and how it came into
+existence. We are entitled to ask why the artificial stimulus, or the
+entry of the spermatozoon, produces the effects which it is claimed to
+produce instead of any one of some score of other effects which it might
+conceivably have produced. Above all we are entitled to ask why there
+are any effects, or even why there is any ovum or any spermatozoon or
+curious physiological investigator, to give the artificial stimulus.
+Until some light is thrown upon these things we are still within the
+system, or merely hovering round its confines, and are far away from any
+final or philosophical explanation such as would satisfy the mind of
+the man who wants to get a real and not a partial knowledge of the
+things around him.
+
+We may now turn to the question of Vitalism. It was long the regnant
+theory; then temporarily the Cinderella of biology; it is now returning
+to its early position, though still denied by those of the older school
+of thought who cannot imagine the kitchen wench of yesterday the ruler
+of to-day. One of the objections to Vitalism is that this explanation of
+living things is thought by ignorant writers to be so inextricably mixed
+up with theological considerations as to furnish a case of _stantis aut
+cadentis ecclesiae_. That is, of course, absurd; but it creates an
+undoubted bias against the theory. Hence it is the fashion amongst its
+opponents to write of it as "mystical" or, as Loeb does, as
+"supernatural," probably the most illogical term that could possibly be
+used. What is Vitalism? It is the theory that there is some other
+element--call it entelechy with Driesch, or call it what you like--in
+living things than those elements known to chemistry and physics. If it
+is _not_ there, _cadit quaestio_; if it _is_ there it is not
+"supernatural." It might with reason be called "super-mechanical," or
+"super-chemical," or "super-physical"; but if it is in Nature, as it is
+held to be, it is not "supernatural" in any true sense of that word--no
+dictionary confines the term "Nature" to the operations of chemistry and
+physics.
+
+A good deal of the misconception existing on this point comes from pure
+ignorance of philosophy, a subject with which writers of this school
+seldom have even a nodding acquaintance. "The idea of a quasi-superhuman
+intelligence presiding over the forces of the living is met with in the
+field of regeneration." Echoes of the Cartesian idea of the soul seem to
+ring in this statement; but it could not have been written by anyone who
+had mastered the Aristotelian or the Scholastic explanation of matter
+and form. But let us take this question of Regeneration; the power which
+all living things have, in some measure, though in very different
+measure, of reconstructing themselves when injured. It has been dealt
+with in a masterly manner by Driesch; and we may at once say that we do
+not think that Loeb has in any way contraverted his argument, nor even
+entered the first line of defence of that which is built up around what
+he calls by the somewhat forbidding name of "Harmonious-Equipotential
+System."
+
+Let us take one particular example, a very remarkable one, which has
+been cited by both writers--Wolff's experiment on the lens of the eye.
+The lens is just behind the pupil or central aperture in the iris or
+coloured ring at the front of the eye, and behind the cornea which is to
+the eye what a watch-glass is to a watch. If the lens of the eye be
+removed from a newt, as it is from human beings in the operation for
+cataract, the animal will grow another one. How does it do it? In
+certain cases a tiny fragment of the lens has been left behind after the
+operation, and the new one grows from that. This is sufficiently
+wonderful, but by no means so wonderful as what happens in other cases
+in which the entire lens has been removed and the new lens grows from
+the outer pigmented layer of the margin of the iris. To the unbiological
+reader one source of origin will not seem more wonderful than the other,
+but there is really a vast distinction between them. At an early stage
+in the development of the embryo, the cells composing it become
+divisible into three layers. It is even possible, as Loeb maintains,
+that this differentiation is present in the unsegmented ovum, in which
+case the facts to be detailed become still more remarkable and
+significant. These layers are known as epi-, meso-, and hypo-blast; and
+from each one of them arise certain portions of the body, and certain
+portions only. It would be as remarkable to a biologist to find these
+layers not breeding true as it would to a fowl-fancier to discover that
+the eggs of his Buff Orpingtons were producing young turkeys or ducks.
+Now the lens is an epiblastic structure, and the iris is mesoblastic.
+Hence the wonder with which we are filled when we find the iris growing
+a lens. Loeb attempts to explain this in the first instance by telling
+us that the cells of the iris cannot grow and develop as long as they
+are pigmented; that the operation wounds the iris, allows pigment to
+escape, and thus permits of proliferation. We may accept this, and yet
+ask why it takes on a form of growth familiar to us only in connection
+with epiblast? The reply is: "Young cells when put into the optic cup
+always become transparent, no matter what their origin; it looks as if
+this were due to a chemical influence, exercised by the optic cup or by
+the liquid it contains.
+
+"Lewis has shown that when the optic cup is transplanted into any other
+place under the epithelium of a larva of a frog the epithelium will
+always grow into the cup where the latter comes in contact with the
+epithelium; and that the ingrowing part will always become transparent."
+A most remarkable and interesting experiment; it has this very important
+limitation--that it is always _epithelium_ with which it has to do,
+whereas in Wolff's experiment the regeneration takes place from
+mesoblastic tissue. The cause of the transparency may be a chemical
+reaction--it depends a good deal upon our definition of that phrase. Is
+protoplasm a chemical compound? Some have considered it so, and spoken
+of its marvellously complicated molecule. Of course it is made up of
+carbon, hydrogen, and other substances within the domain of chemistry.
+But is it, therefore, merely a chemical compound? The reply involves the
+whole riddle of Vitalism. The author would say that it, as well as all
+the living things to which it belongs, is purely and solely a chemical
+compound; and he must take the consequences of his belief. One of these
+consequences, from which doubtless he would not shrink, would be that a
+super-chemist (so to speak) could write him and his experiments and his
+book down in a series of chemical formulć--a consequence which takes a
+good deal of believing. But it also involves him in a belief in the
+rigidity of chemical reactions; and we are entitled to ask for an
+explanation of the identical behaviour of the chemical reaction in
+connection with epiblastic and mesoblastic cells--both pure chemical
+compounds _ex hypothesi_ and, as far as we can tell from their normal
+behaviour, widely differing from one another. The optic cup, or its
+contained fluid, is one chemical compound; epithelium is another;
+mesoblast is a third. We want an explanation of the identical behaviour
+of the first with _either_ of the two latter; and this should be borne
+in mind--that the reaction is not a mere matter of "clearing" of a
+tissue as the histologist would clear his section by oil-of-cloves or
+other reagent, but of the construction of a different type of
+cell--epithelial, not connective tissue.
+
+It certainly follows that there must be some superior, at least widely
+different, agency at work than one of a purely chemical
+character--something which transcends chemical operations. This is
+precisely what the Vitalist claims. No one will fail to award praise to
+any attempts to explain the phenomena of Nature, whether within or
+without any system. Loeb's book sets out to do a great deal more--to
+explain what it does not explain--the Organism as a Whole, and thus to
+give a philosophical explanation of man. It even claims to afford hints
+for a rule for his life, at least so we gather from the Preface, where,
+alluding to "that group of freethinkers, including d'Alembert, Diderot,
+Holbach and Voltaire," the author tells us that they "first dared to
+follow the consequences of a mechanistic science--incomplete as it then
+was--to the rules of human conduct, and thereby laid the foundation of
+that spirit of tolerance, justice, and gentleness which was the hope of
+our civilisation until it was buried under the wave of homicidal emotion
+which has swept through the world." On which it is surely reasonable to
+ask how a chemical reaction can learn so to alter itself as to exhibit
+"tolerance, justice, and gentleness," attributes which it had not
+previously possessed? Such claims of this and other writers, who would
+find in the laws of Nature as formulated to-day (forgetful that their
+formulć may to-morrow be cast into the furnace) a rule of life as well
+as a full explanation of the cosmos, resemble in their lack of base an
+inverted pyramid.
+
+
+
+
+IV. SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE"
+
+
+Amongst the numerous taunts which are cast at the Catholic Church there
+is none more frequently employed, nor, it may be added, more generally
+believed, nor more injurious to her reputation amongst outsiders--even
+with her own less-instructed children themselves at times--than the
+allegation which declares that where the Church has full sway, science
+cannot flourish, can scarcely in fact exist, and that the Church will
+only permit men of science to study and to teach as and while she
+permits.
+
+To give but one example of this attitude towards the Church, readers may
+be reminded that Huxley[23] called the Catholic Church "the vigorous
+enemy of the highest life of mankind," and rejoiced that evolution, "in
+addition to its truth, has the great merit of being in a position of
+irreconcilable antagonism to it." An utterly incorrect, even ignorant
+statement, by the way--but let that pass. The same writer, in a number
+of places, in season and out of season, as we may fairly say,[24]
+proclaims his wholly erroneous view that there is "a necessary
+antagonism between science and Roman Catholic doctrine." We need not
+labour this point. It is sufficiently obvious, nor does it need any
+catena of authorities to establish the fact, that outside the Church,
+and even, as we have hinted above, amongst the less-instructed of her
+own children, there is a prevalent idea that the allegation with which
+this paper proposes to deal is a true bill.
+
+Those who give credit to the allegation must of course ignore certain
+very patent facts which are, it will be allowed, a little difficult to
+get over. They must commence by ignoring the historical fact that the
+greater number--almost all indeed--of the older Universities, places
+specially intended to foster and increase knowledge and research, owe
+their origin to Papal bulls. They must ignore the fact that vast numbers
+of scientific researches, often of fundamental importance, especially
+perhaps in the subjects of anatomy and physiology, emanated from learned
+men attached to seats of learning in Rome, and this during the Middle
+Ages, and that the learned men who were their authors quite frequently
+held official positions in the Papal Court. They must finally ignore the
+fact that a large number of the most distinguished scientific workers
+and discoverers in the past were also devout children of the Catholic
+Church. Stensen, "the Father of Geology" and a great anatomical
+discoverer as well, was a bishop; Mendel, whose name is so often heard
+nowadays in biological controversies, was an abbot. And what about
+Galvani, Volta, Pasteur, Schwann (the originator of the Cell Theory),
+van Beneden, Johannes Müller, admitted by Huxley to be "the greatest
+anatomist and physiologist among my contemporaries"?[25] What about
+Kircher, Spallanzani, Secchi, de Lapparent, to take the names of persons
+of different historical periods, and connected with different subjects,
+yet all united in the bond of the Faith? To point to these men--and a
+host of other names might be cited--is to overthrow at once and finally
+the edifice of falsehood reared by enemies of the Church, who, before
+erecting it, might reasonably have been asked to look to the security of
+their foundations.
+
+Still there is the edifice, and as every edifice must rest on some kind
+of foundation or another, even if that foundation be nothing but sand,
+it may be useful and interesting to inquire, as I now propose to do,
+what foundation there is--if in fact there is any--for this particular
+allegation.
+
+We might commence by interrogating the persons who make it. The
+probability is that the reply which would at once be drawn from most of
+them would amount to this: "Everybody knows it to be true." If the
+interrogated person is amongst those less imperfectly informed we shall
+probably be referred to Huxley or to some other writer. Or we may even
+find ourselves confronted with that greater knowledge--or less
+inspissated ignorance--which babbles about Galileo, the Inquisition, the
+_Index_, and the _imprimatur_.
+
+Galileo and his case we shall consider later on, for he and it are
+really germane to the question with which we are dealing. The
+Inquisition has really nothing to do with the matter. The _Index_ we
+also reserve for a later part of this essay. With the _imprimatur_ we
+may now deal, since there is no doubt that there is a genuine
+misunderstanding on this subject on the part of some people who are
+misled perhaps through ignorance of Latin and quite certainly through
+ignorance of what the whole matter amounts to. Let us begin by reminding
+ourselves that, though the unchanging Church is now, so far as I am
+aware, the only body which issues an _imprimatur_, there were other
+instances of the exercise of such a privilege even in recent or
+comparatively recent days. There were Royal licences to print with which
+we need not concern ourselves. But, what is important, there was a time
+when the scientific authority of the day assumed the right of issuing an
+_imprimatur_. I take the first book which occurs to me, Tyson's
+_Anatomie of a Pygmie_, and for the sake of those who are not acquainted
+with it, I may add that this book is not only the foundation-stone of
+Comparative Anatomy, but also, through its appendix _A Philological
+Essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges
+of the Ancients_, the foundation-stone of all folk-lore study. On the
+page fronting the title of this work the following appears:
+
+                                       _17 Die Maij, 1699._
+
+       _Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang sive Homo
+     Sylvestris, etc. Authore Edvardo Tyson, M.D., R.S.S._
+
+                                    _John Hoskins, V.P.R.S._
+
+What does this mean? In the first place it shows, what all instructed
+persons know, that the Royal Society did then exercise the privilege of
+giving an _imprimatur_ at any rate to books written by its own Fellows.
+It cannot be supposed that such _imprimatur_ guaranteed the accuracy of
+all the statements made by Tyson, for we may feel sure that John Hoskins
+was quite unable to give any such assurance. We must assume that it
+meant that there was nothing in the book which would reflect discredit
+upon the Society of which Tyson was a Fellow and from which the
+_imprimatur_ was obtained.
+
+However this may be, the sway over its Fellows' publications was
+exercised, and indeed very excellent arguments might be adduced for the
+reassumption of such a sway even to-day.[26]
+
+Though the _imprimatur_ in question has fallen into desuetude, it is, as
+we all know, the commonest of things for the introductions to works of
+science to occupy some often considerable part of their space with
+acknowledgments of assistance given by learned friends who have read the
+manuscript or the proofs and made suggestions with the object of
+improving the book or adding to its accuracy. Any person who has written
+a book can feel nothing but gratitude towards those who have helped him
+to avoid the errors and slips to which even the most careful are
+subject.
+
+So that such acknowledgments of assistance have come to be almost what
+the lawyers call "common form." What they really amount to is a
+proclamation on the part of the author that he has done his best to
+ensure that his book is free from mistakes. Now the _imprimatur_ really
+amounts to the same thing, for it is, of course, confined to books or
+parts of books where theology or philosophy trenching upon theology is
+concerned. Thus a book may deal largely, perhaps mainly, with scientific
+points, yet necessarily include allusions to theological dogmas. The
+_imprimatur_ to such a book would relate solely and entirely to the
+theological parts, just as the advice of an architectural authority on a
+point connected with that subject in a work in which it was mentioned
+only in an incidental manner, would refer to that point, and to nothing
+else. Perhaps it should be added, that no author is obliged to obtain an
+_imprimatur_ any more than he is compelled to seek advice on any other
+point in connection with his book. "_Nihil Obstat_," says the skilled
+referee: "I see no reason to suppose that there is anything in all this
+which contravenes theological principles." To which the authority
+appealed to adds "_imprimatur_:" "Then by all means let it be printed."
+The procedure is no doubt somewhat more stately and formal than the
+modern system of acknowledgments, yet in actual practice there is but
+little to differentiate the two methods of ensuring, so far as is
+possible, that the work is free from mistakes. That neither the
+assistance of friends nor the _imprimatur_ of authorities is infallible
+is proved by the facts that mistakes do creep into works of science,
+however carefully examined, and that more than one book with an
+_imprimatur_ has, none the less, found its way on to the _Index_. Before
+leaving this branch of the subject one cannot refrain from calling
+attention to another point. How often in advertisements of books do we
+not see quotations from reviews in authoritative journals--a medical
+work from the _Lancet_, a physical or chemical from _Nature_? Frequently
+too we see "Mr. So-and-So, the well-known authority on the subject, says
+of this book, etc., etc." What are all these authoritative commendations
+but an _imprimatur_ up to date?
+
+Passing from the _imprimatur_ to a closer consideration of our subject,
+it is above all things necessary to take the advice of Samuel Johnson
+and clear our minds of cant. Every person in this world--save perhaps a
+Robinson Crusoe on an otherwise uninhabited island, and he only because
+of his solitary condition--is in bondage more or less to others; that is
+to say, has his freedom more or less interfered with. That this
+interference is in the interests of the community and so, in the last
+analysis, in the interests of the person interfered with himself, in no
+way weakens the argument; it is rather a potent adjuvant to it. However
+much I may dislike him and however anxious I may be to injure him, I may
+not go out and set fire to my neighbour's house nor to his rick-yard,
+unless I am prepared to risk the serious legal penalties which will be
+my lot if I am detected in the act. I may not, if I am a small and
+active boy, make a slide in the public street in frosty weather, unless
+I am prepared--as the small boy usually is--to run the gauntlet of the
+police. In a thousand ways my freedom, or what I call my freedom, is
+interfered with: it is the price which I pay for being one item of a
+social organism and for being in turn protected against others, who, in
+virtue of that protection, are in their turn deprived of what they might
+call their liberty.
+
+No one can have failed to observe that this interference with personal
+liberty becomes greater day by day. It is a tendency of modern
+governments, based presumably upon increased experience, to increase
+these protective regulations. Thus we have laws against adulteration of
+food, against the placing of buildings concerned with obnoxious trades
+in positions where people will be inconvenienced by them. We make
+persons suffering from infectious diseases isolate themselves, and if
+they cannot do this at home, we make them go to the fever hospital.
+Further, we insist upon the doctor, whose position resembles that of a
+confessor, breaking his obligation of professional secrecy and informing
+the authorities as to the illness of his patient. We interfere with the
+liberty of men and women to work as long as they like or to make their
+children labour for excessive hours. We insist upon dangerous machinery
+being fenced in. In a thousand ways we--the State--interfere with the
+liberty of our fellows. Finally, when the needs of the community are
+most pressing we interfere most with the freedom of the subject. Thus,
+in these islands, we were recently living under a Defence of the Realm
+Act--with which no reasonable person quarrelled. Yet it forbad many
+things not only harmless in themselves but habitually permitted in times
+of peace. We were subject to penalties if we showed lighted windows:
+they must be shuttered or provided with heavy curtains. We might not
+travel in railway carriages at night with the blinds undrawn. The papers
+might not publish, nor we say in public, things which in time of peace
+would go unnoticed. There were a host of other matters to which allusion
+need not be made. Enough has been said to show that the State has and
+exerts the right to control the actions of those who belong to it, and
+that in time of stress it can and does very greatly intensify that
+control and does so without arousing any real or widespread discontent.
+Of course we all grumble, but then everybody, except its own members,
+always does more or less grumble at anything done by any government:
+that is the ordinary state of affairs. But at any rate we submit
+ourselves, more or less gracefully, to this restraint because we
+persuade ourselves or are persuaded that it is for the good of the State
+and thus for the good of ourselves, both as private individuals and as
+members of the State.
+
+And many of us, at any rate, comfort ourselves with the thought that a
+great many of the regulations which appear to be most tyrannical and
+most to interfere with the natural liberty of mankind are devised not
+with that end in view but with the righteous intention of protecting
+those weaker members of the body who are unable to protect themselves.
+If the State does not stand by such members and offer itself as their
+shield and support, it has no claim to our obedience, no real right to
+exist, and so we put up with the inconvenience, should such arise, on
+account of the protection given to the weaker members and often extended
+to those who would by no means feel pleased if they heard themselves
+thus described.
+
+Let us substitute the Church for the State and let us remember that
+there are times when she is at closer grips with the powers of evil than
+may be the case at other times. The parallel is surely sufficiently
+close.
+
+So far as earthly laws can control one, no one is obliged to be a member
+of the Catholic Church nor a citizen of the British Empire. I can, if I
+choose, emigrate to America, in process of time naturalise myself there
+and join the Christian Science organisation or any other body to which I
+find myself attracted. But as long as I remain a Catholic and a British
+citizen I must submit myself to the restrictions imposed by the bodies
+with which I have elected to connect myself. We arrive at the conclusion
+then that the ordinary citizen, even if he never adverts to the fact, is
+in reality controlled and his liberty limited in all sorts of
+directions.
+
+Now the scientific man, in his own work, is subject to all sorts of
+limitations, apart altogether from the limitations to which, as an
+ordinary member of the State, he has to submit himself.
+
+He is restricted by science: he is not completely free but is bound by
+knowledge--the knowledge which he or others have acquired.
+
+To say he is limited by it is not to say that he is imprisoned by it or
+in bondage to it. "One does not lose one's intellectual liberty when one
+learns mathematics," says the late Monsignor Benson in one of his
+letters, "though one certainly loses the liberty of doing sums wrong or
+doing them by laborious methods!"
+
+Before setting out upon any research, the careful man of science sets
+himself to study "the literature of the subject" as he calls it. He
+delves into all sorts of out-of-the-way periodicals to ascertain what
+such a man has written upon such a point. All this he does in order that
+he may avoid doing a piece of work over again unnecessarily:
+_unnecessarily_, for it maybe actually necessary to repeat it, if it is
+of very great importance and if it has not been repeated and verified by
+other observers. Further, he delves into this literature because it is
+thus that he hopes to avoid the many blind alleys which branch off from
+every path of research, delude their explorer with vain hopes and
+finally bring him face to face with a blank wall. In a word the inquirer
+consults his authorities and when he finds them worthy of reliance, he
+limits his freedom by paying attention to them. He does not say: "How am
+I held in bondage by this assertion that the earth goes round the sun,"
+but accepting that fact, he rejects such of his conclusions as are
+obviously irreconcilable with it. Surely this is plain common sense and
+the man who acted otherwise would be setting himself a quite impossible
+task. It is the weakness of the "heuristic method" that it sets its
+pupils to find out things which many abler men have spent years in
+investigating. The man who sets out to make a research, without first
+ascertaining what others have done in that direction, proposes to
+accumulate in himself the abilities and the life-work of all previous
+generations of labourers in that corner of the scientific vineyard.
+
+There is a somewhat amusing and certainly interesting instance of this
+which will bear quotation. The late Mr. Grant Allen, who knew something
+of quite a number of subjects though perhaps not very much about any of
+them, devoted most of his time and energies (outside his stories, some
+of which are quite entertaining) to not always very accurate essays in
+natural history. One day, however, his evil genius prompted him to write
+and, worse still, to publish a book entitled _Force and Energy: A Theory
+of Dynamics_, in which he purported to deal with a matter of which he
+knew far less even than he did about animated nature. Mark the
+inevitable result! A copy of the book was forwarded to the journal
+_Nature_, and sent by its editor to be dealt with by the competent hands
+of Sir Oliver (then Professor) Lodge.[27]
+
+This is how that eminent authority dealt with it. "There exists a
+certain class of mind," he commences, "allied perhaps to the Greek
+sophist variety, to which ignorance of a subject offers no sufficient
+obstacle to the composition of a treatise upon it." It may be rash to
+suggest that this type of mind is well developed in philosophers of the
+Spencerian school, though it would be possible to adduce some evidence
+in support of such a suggestion. "In the volume before us," he
+continues, "Mr. Grant Allen sets to work to reconstruct the fundamental
+science of dynamics, an edifice which, since the time of Galileo and
+Newton, has been standing on what has seemed a fairly secure and
+substantial basis, but which he seems to think it is now time to
+demolish in order to make room for a newly excogitated theory. The
+attempt is audacious and the result--what might have been expected. The
+performance lends itself indeed to the most scathing criticism; blunders
+and misstatements abound on nearly every page, and the whole thing is
+simply an emanation of mental fog." It would occupy too much space to
+reproduce this criticism with any fullness, but one or two points
+exceedingly germane to our subject can hardly go without notice.
+Alluding to a certain question, which seems to have greatly bothered Mr.
+Allen and likewise Mr. Clodd, who, it would appear, was associated with
+him in this performance, the reviewer says: "The puzzle was solved
+completely long ago, in the clearest possible manner, and the
+'_Principia_' is the witness to it; but it is still felt to be a
+difficulty by beginners, and I suppose there is no offence in applying
+this harmless epithet to both Mr. Grant Allen and Mr. Clodd, so far as
+the truths of dynamics and physics are concerned." One last quotation:
+"The thing which strikes one most forcibly about the physics of these
+paper philosophers is the extraordinary contempt which, if they are
+consistent, they must or ought to feel for men of science. If Newton,
+Lagrange, Gauss, and Thompson, to say nothing of smaller men, have
+muddled away their brains in concocting a scheme of dynamics wherein the
+very definitions are all wrong; if they have arrived at a law of
+conservation of energy without knowing what the word energy means, or
+how to define it; if they have to be set right by an amateur who has
+devoted a few weeks or months to the subject and acquired a rude
+smattering of some of its terms, 'what intolerable fools they must all
+be!'" Such is the result of asserting one's freedom by escaping the
+limitations of knowledge! We see what happens when a person sets out to
+deal with science untrammelled by any considerations as to what others
+have thought and established. The necessary result is that he plunges
+headforemost into all or most of the errors which were pitfalls to the
+first labourers in the field. Or, again, he painfully and uselessly
+pursues the blind alleys which they had wandered in, and from which a
+perusal of their works would have warned off later comers.
+
+Oh, irony of fate! the same thing precisely happens when men of
+scientific eminence indulge in religious dissertations, for of course,
+though it is not quite so obvious to such writers, the same blunder is
+quite possible in non-scientific fields of knowledge. I once asked one
+versed in theology what he thought of the religious articles of a
+distinguished man, unfamiliar himself with theology, yet, none the less,
+then splashing freely and to the great admiration of the ignorant, in
+the theological pool. His reply was that in so far as they were at all
+constructive, they consisted mostly of exploded heresies of the first
+century. Is not this precisely what one would have expected _a priori_?
+A man commencing to write on science or religion who neglects the work
+of earlier writers places himself in the position of the first students
+of the subject and very naturally will make the same mistakes as they
+made. He refuses to be hampered and biased by knowledge, and the result
+follows quite inevitably. "A scientist," says Monsignor Benson, "is
+hampered and biased by knowing the earth goes round the sun." The fact
+of the matter is that the man of science is not a solitary figure, a
+_chimćra bombinans in vacuo_. In whatever direction he looks he is faced
+by the figures of other workers and he is limited and "hampered" by
+their work. Nor are these workers all of them in his own area of
+country, for the biologist, for example, cannot afford to neglect the
+doings of the chemist; if he does he is bound to find himself led into
+mistakes. No doubt the scientific man is at times needlessly hampered by
+theories which he and others at the time take to be fairly well
+established facts, but which after all turn out to be nothing of the
+kind. This in no way weakens the argument, but rather by giving an
+additional reason for caution, strengthens it.
+
+If we carefully consider the matter we shall be unable to come to any
+other conclusion than that every writer, even of the wildest form of
+fiction, is in some way and to some extent hampered and limited by
+knowledge, by facts, by things as they are or as they appear to be. That
+will be admitted; but it will be urged that the hampering and limiting
+with which we have been dealing is not merely legitimate but inevitable,
+whereas the hampering and limiting--should such there be--on the part of
+the Church is wholly illegitimate and indefensible.
+
+"All that you say is no doubt true," our antagonist will urge, "but you
+have still to show that your Church has any right or title to interfere
+in these matters. And even if you can make some sort of case for her
+interference, you have still to disprove what so many people believe,
+namely, that the right, real or assumed, has not been arbitrarily used
+to the damage, or at least to the delay of scientific progress.
+Chemistry," we may suppose our antagonist continuing, "no doubt has a
+legitimate right to have its say, even to interfere and that
+imperatively, where chemical considerations invade the field of biology,
+for example. But what similar right does religion possess? For
+instance," he might proceed, "some few years ago a distinguished
+physiologist, then occupying the Chair of the British Association,
+invoked the behaviour of certain chemical substances known as colloids
+in favour of his anti-vitalistic conclusions. At once he was answered by
+a number of equally eminent chemists that the attitude he had adopted
+was quite incompatible with facts as known to them; in a word, that
+chemistry disagreed with his ideas as to colloids. Everybody admitted
+that the chemists must have the final word on this subject: are you now
+claiming that religion or theology, or whatever you choose to call it,
+is also entitled to a say in a matter of that kind?" This supposititious
+conversation illustrates the confusion which exists in many minds as to
+the point at issue. One science is entitled to contradict another, just
+as one scientific man is entitled to contradict another on a question of
+fact. But on a question of _fact_ a theologian is not entitled--_quâ_
+theologian--nor would he be expected to claim to be entitled, to
+contradict a man of science.
+
+It ought to be widely known, though it is not, that the idea that
+theologians can or wish to intrude--again _quâ_ theologians--in
+scientific disputes as to chemical, biological, or other facts, is a
+fantastic idea without real foundation save that of the one mistake of
+the kind made in the case of Galileo and never repeated--a mistake, let
+us hasten to add, made by a disciplinary authority and--as all parties
+admit--in no way involving questions of infallibility. To this case we
+will revert shortly. Meanwhile it may be briefly stated that the claim
+made by the Church is in connection with some few--some very few--of
+the _theories_ which men of science build up upon the facts which they
+have brought to light. Some of these theories do appear to contradict
+theological dogmas, or at least may seem to simple people to be
+incompatible with such dogmas, just as the people of his
+time--Protestants by the way, no less than Catholics--did really think
+that Galileo's theory conflicted with Holy Writ. In such cases, and in
+such cases alone, the Church holds that she has at least the right to
+say that such a theory should not be proclaimed to be true until there
+is sufficient proof for it to satisfy the scientific world that the
+point has been demonstrated.
+
+This is really what is meant by the tyranny of the Church; and it may
+now be useful to consider briefly what can be said for her position. We
+must begin by looking at the matter from the Church's standpoint. It is
+a good rule to endeavour to understand your opponent's position before
+you try to confute him; an excellent rule seldom complied with by
+anti-Catholic controversialists. Now the Church starts with the
+proposition that man has an immortal soul destined to eternal happiness
+or eternal misery, and she proceeds to claim that she has been divinely
+constituted to help man to enjoy a future of happiness. Of course these
+are opinions which all do not share, and with the arguments for and
+against which we cannot here deal. If a man is quite sure that he has no
+soul and that there is no hereafter there is nothing more to be said
+than: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Nothing very much
+matters in this world except that we should make ourselves as
+comfortable as we can during the few years we have to spend in it.
+
+Again, there are others who, whilst believing the first doctrine set
+down above, will have none of the other. With them we enter into no
+argument here, and only say that to have a guide is better than to have
+no guide. Catholics, who accept gratefully her guidance, do believe that
+the Church can help a man to save his soul, and that she is entrusted,
+to that end, with certain powers. Her duty is to preserve and guard the
+Christian Revelation--the scheme of doctrine regarding belief and
+conduct by which Jesus Christ taught that souls were to be saved. She is
+not an arbitrary ruler. Her office is primarily that of Judge and
+Interpreter of the deposit of doctrine entrusted to her.
+
+In this she claims to be safeguarded against error, though her
+infallible utterances would seem incredibly few, if summed up and
+presented to the more ignorant of her critics. She also claims to derive
+from her Founder legislative power by which she can make decrees, unmake
+them or modify and vary them to suit different times and circumstances.
+She rightfully claims the obedience of her children to this exercise of
+her authority, but such disciplinary enactments, by their very nature
+variable and modifiable, do not and cannot come within the province of
+her infallibility, and admittedly they need not be always perfectly wise
+or judicious. Such disciplinary utterances, it may be added, at least
+in the field of which we are treating, indeed in any field, are also
+incredibly few when due regard is had to the enormous number of cases
+passing under the Church's observation.
+
+We saw just now that the State exercised a very large jurisdiction for
+the purpose of protecting the weak who were unable or little able to
+protect themselves. It is really important to remember, when we are
+considering the powers of the Church and her exercise of them, that
+these disciplinary powers are put in operation, not from mere arrogance
+or an arbitrary love of domination--as too many suppose--but with the
+primary intention of protecting and helping the weaker members of the
+flock. If the Church consisted entirely of theological experts a good
+deal of this exercise of disciplinary power might very likely be
+regarded as wholly unnecessary. Thus the Church freely concedes not only
+to priests and theologians, but to other persons adequately instructed
+in her teaching, full permission to read books which she has placed on
+her black list or _Index_--from which, in other words, she has warned
+off the weaker members of the flock.
+
+The net of Peter, however, as all very well know, contains a very great
+variety of fish, and--to vary the metaphor--to the fisherman was given
+charge not only of the sheep--foolish enough, heaven knows!--but also of
+the still more helpless lambs. Thus it becomes the duty and the
+privilege of the successors of the fisherman to protect the sheep and
+the lambs, and not merely to protect them from wild beasts who may try
+to do harm from without, but quite as much from the wild rams of the
+flock who are capable of doing a great deal of injury from within. In
+one of his letters, from which quotation has already been made, the late
+Monsignor Benson sums up, in homely, but vivid language, the point with
+which we have just been dealing. "Here are the lambs of Christ's flock,"
+he writes: "Is a stout old ram to upset and confuse them when he needn't
+... even though he is right? The flock must be led gently and turned in
+a great curve. We can't all whip round in an instant. We are tired and
+discouraged and some of us are exceedingly stupid and obstinate. Very
+well; then the rams can't be allowed to make brilliant excursions in all
+directions and upset us all. We shall get there some day, if we are
+treated patiently. We are Christ's lambs after all."
+
+The protection of the weak: surely, if it be deemed both just and wise
+on the part of the civil government to protect its subjects by
+legislation in regard to adulterated goods, contagious diseases,
+unhealthy workshops and dangerous machinery, why may not the Church
+safeguard her children, especially her weaker children, the special
+object of her care and solicitude, from noxious intellectual foods?
+
+It is just here that the question of the _Index_ arises. Put briefly,
+this is a list of books which are not to be read by Catholics unless
+they have permission to read them--a permission which, as we have just
+seen, is never refused when any good reason can be given for the
+request. I can understand the kind of person who says: "Exactly, locking
+up the truth; why not let everybody read just what they like?" To which
+I would reply that every careful parent has an _Index Prohibitorius_ for
+his household; or ought to have one if he has not. I once knew a woman
+who allowed her daughter to plunge into _Nana_ and other works of that
+character as soon as she could summon up enough knowledge of French to
+fathom their meaning. The daughter grew up and the result has not been
+encouraging to educationists thinking of proceeding on similar lines.
+The State also has its _Index Prohibitorius_ and will not permit
+indecent books nor indecent pictures to be sold. Enough: let us again
+clear our minds of cant. There is a limit with regard to publications in
+every decent State and every decent house: it is only a question where
+the line is drawn. It is obvious that the Church must be permitted at
+least as much privilege in this matter as is claimed by every
+respectable father of a family.
+
+We need not pursue the question of the _Index_ any further, but before
+we leave it let us for a moment turn to another accusation levelled
+against Catholic men of science by anti-Catholic writers, that of
+concealing their real opinions on scientific matters, and even of
+professing views which they do not really hold, out of a craven fear of
+ecclesiastical denunciations. The attitude which permits of such an
+accusation is hardly courteous, but, stripped of its verbiage, that is
+the accusation as it is made. Now, as there are usually at least some
+smouldering embers of fire where there is smoke, there is just one small
+item of truth behind all this pother. No Catholic, scientific man or
+otherwise, who really honours his Faith would desire wilfully to advance
+theories apparently hostile to its teaching. Further, even if he were
+convinced of the truth of facts which might appear--it could only be
+"appear"--to conflict with that teaching, he would, in expounding them,
+either show how they could be harmonised with his religion, or, if he
+were wise, would treat his facts from a severely scientific point of
+view and leave other considerations to the theologians trained in
+directions almost invariably unexplored by scientific men. Perhaps the
+memory of old, far-off, unhappy events should not be recalled, but it is
+pertinent to remark that the troubles in connection with a man whose
+name once stood for all that was stalwart in Catholicism, did not
+originate in, nor were they connected with, any of the scientific books
+and papers of which the late Professor Mivart was the author, but with
+those theological essays which all his friends must regret that he
+should ever have written.
+
+It may not be waste of time briefly to consider two of the instances
+commonly brought up as examples when the allegation with which we are
+dealing is under consideration.
+
+First of all let us consider the case of Gabriel Fallopius, who
+lived--it is very important to note the date--1523-1562; a Catholic and
+a churchman. Now it is gravely asserted that Fallopius committed
+himself to misleading views, views which he knew to be misleading,
+because he thought that he was thereby serving the interest of the
+Church. What he said concerned fossils, then beginning to puzzle the
+scientific world of the day. Confronted with these objects and living,
+as he did, in an unscientific age, when the seven days of creation were
+interpreted as periods of twenty-four hours each and the universality of
+the Noachian deluge was accepted by everybody, it would have been
+something like a miracle if he had at once fathomed the true meaning of
+the shark's teeth, elephant's bones, and other fossil remains which came
+under his notice. His idea was that all these things were mere
+concretions "generated by fermentation in the spots where they were
+found," as he very quaintly and even absurdly put it. The accusation,
+however, is not that Fallopius made a mistake--as many another man has
+done--but that he deliberately expressed an opinion which he did not
+hold and did so from religious motives. Of course, this includes the
+idea that he knew what the real explanation was, for had he not known
+it, he could not have been guilty of making a false statement. There is
+no evidence whatever that Fallopius ever had so much as a suspicion of
+the real explanation, nor, it may be added, had any other man of science
+for the century which followed his death.
+
+Then there arose another Catholic churchman, Nicolaus Stensen
+(1631-1686), who, by the way, ended his days as a bishop, who did solve
+the riddle, giving the answer which we accept to-day as correct, and on
+whom was conferred by his brethren two hundred years later the title of
+"The Father of Geology." It is a little difficult to understand how the
+"unchanging Church" should have welcomed, or at least in no way objected
+to, Stensen's views when the mere entertainment of them by Fallopius is
+supposed to have terrified him into silence. But when the story of
+Fallopius is mistold, as indicated above, it need hardly be said that
+the story of Stensen is never so much as alluded to.
+
+The real facts of the case are these: Fallopius was one of the most
+distinguished men of science of his day. Every medical student becomes
+acquainted with his name because it is attached to two parts of the
+human body which he first described. He made a mistake about fossils,
+and that is the plain truth--as we now know, a most absurd mistake, but
+that is all. As we hinted above, he is very far from being the only
+scientific man who has made a mistake. Huxley had a very bad fall over
+_Bathybius_ and was man enough to admit that he was wrong. Curiously
+enough, what Huxley thought a living thing really was a concretion, just
+as what Fallopius thought a concretion had been a living thing.
+
+Another extremely curious fact is that another distinguished man of
+science, who lived three hundred years later than Fallopius and had all
+the knowledge which had accumulated during that prolific period to
+assist him, the late Philip Gosse, fell into the same pit as Fallopius.
+As his son tells us, he wrote a book to prove that when the sudden act
+of creation took place the world came into existence so constructed as
+to bear the appearance of a place which had for ćons been inhabited by
+living things, or, as some of his critics unkindly put it, "that God hid
+the fossils in the rocks in order to tempt geologists into infidelity."
+Gosse had the real answer under his eyes which Fallopius had not, for
+the riddle was unread in the latter's days. Yet Gosse's really
+unpardonable mistake was attributed to himself alone, and "Plymouth
+Brethrenism," which was the sect to which he belonged, was not saddled
+with it, nor have the Brethren been called obscurantists because of it.
+
+Of course there is a second string to the accusation we are dealing
+with. If the scientific man did really express new and perhaps startling
+opinions, they would have been much newer and much more startling had he
+not held himself in for fear of the Church and said only about half of
+what he might have said. It is the half instead of the whole loaf of the
+former accusation. Thus, in its notice of Stensen, the current issue of
+the _Encyclopćdia Britannica_ says: "Cautiously at first, for fear of
+offending orthodox opinion, but afterwards more boldly, he proclaimed
+his opinion that these objects (_viz._ fossils) had once been parts of
+living animals."
+
+One may feel quite certain that if Stensen had not been a Catholic
+ecclesiastic this notice would have run--and far more
+truthfully--"Cautiously at first, until he felt that the facts at his
+disposal made his position quite secure, and then more boldly, etc.
+etc."
+
+What in the ordinary man of science is caution, becomes cowardice in the
+Catholic. We shall find another example of this in the case of Buffon
+(1707-1788) often cited as that of a man who believed all that Darwin
+believed and one hundred years before Darwin, and who yet was afraid to
+say it because of the Church to which he belonged. This mistake is
+partly due to that lamentable ignorance of Catholic teaching, not to say
+that lamentable incapacity for clear thinking, on these matters, which
+afflicts some non-Catholic writers. Let us take an example from an
+eminently fairly written book, in which, dealing with Buffon, the author
+says: "I cannot agree with those who think that Buffon was an
+out-and-out evolutionist, who concealed his opinions for fear of the
+Church. No doubt he did trim his sails--the palpably insincere _Mais
+non, il est certain par la révélation que tous les animaux ont également
+participé ŕ la grâce de la création_, following hard upon the too bold
+hypothesis of the origin of all species from a single one, is proof of
+it." Of course it is nothing of the kind, for, whatever Buffon may have
+meant, and none but himself could tell us, it is perfectly clear that
+whether creation was mediate (as under transformism considered from a
+Christian point of view it would be) or immediate, every created thing
+would participate in the grace of creation, which is just the point
+which the writer from whom the quotation has been made has missed.
+
+The same writer furnishes us with the real explanation of Buffon's
+attitude when he says that Buffon was "too sane and matter-of-fact a
+thinker to go much beyond his facts, and his evolution doctrine remained
+always tentative." Buffon, like many another man, from St. Augustine
+down to his own times, considered the transformist explanation of living
+nature. He saw that it unified and simplified the conceptions of species
+and that there were certain facts which seemed strongly to support it.
+But he does not seem to have thought that they were sufficient to
+establish it and he puts forward his views in the tentative manner which
+has just been suggested.
+
+The fact is that those who father the accusations with which we have
+been dealing either do not know, or scrupulously conceal their
+knowledge, that what they proclaim to be scientific cowardice is really
+scientific caution, a thing to be lauded and not to be decried.
+
+Let us turn to apply the considerations with which we have been
+concerned to the case of Galileo, to which generally misunderstood
+affair we must very briefly allude, since it is the standby of
+anti-Catholic controversialists. Monsignor Benson, in connection with
+the quotation recently cited, proclaimed himself "a violent defender of
+the Cardinals against Galileo." Perhaps no one will be surprised at his
+attitude, but those who are not familiar with his _Life and Letters_
+will certainly be surprised to learn that Huxley, after examining into
+the question, "arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College
+of Cardinals had rather the best of it."[28]
+
+None the less it is the stock argument. Father Hull, S. J., whose
+admirable, outspoken, and impartial study of the case[29] should be on
+everybody's bookshelves, freely admits that the Roman Congregations made
+a mistake in this matter and thus takes up a less favourable position
+towards them than even the violently anti-Catholic Huxley.
+
+No one will deny that the action of the Congregation was due to a desire
+to prevent simple persons from having their faith upset by a theory
+which seemed at the time to contradict the teaching of the Bible.
+Remember that it was only a theory and that, when it was put forward,
+and indeed for many years afterwards, it was not only a theory, but one
+supported by no sufficient evidence. It was not in fact until many years
+after Galileo's death that final and convincing evidence as to the
+accuracy of his views was laid before the scientific world. There can be
+but little doubt that if Galileo had been content to discuss his theory
+with other men of science, and not to lay it down as a matter of proved
+fact--which, as we have seen, it was not--he would never have been
+condemned. Whilst we may admit, with Father Hull, that a mistake was
+made in this case, we may urge, with Cardinal Newman, that it is the
+only case in which such a thing has happened--surely a remarkable fact.
+It is not for want of opportunities. Father Hull very properly cites
+various cases where a like difficulty might possibly have arisen, but
+where, as a matter of fact, it has not. For example, the geographical
+universality of the Deluge was at one time, and that not so very long
+ago, believed to be asserted by the Bible; while, on the other hand,
+geologists seemed to be able to show, and in the event did show, that
+such a view was scientifically untenable. The attention of theologians
+having been called to this matter, and a further study made of passages
+which until then had probably attracted but little notice, and quite
+certainly had never been considered from the new point of view, it
+became obvious that the meaning which had been attached to the passages
+in question was not the necessary meaning, but on the contrary, a
+strained interpretation of the words. No public fuss having arisen about
+this particular difficulty, the whole matter was gradually and quietly
+disposed of. As Father Hull says, "the new view gradually filtered down
+from learned circles to the man in the street, so that nowadays the
+partiality of the Deluge is a matter of commonplace knowledge among all
+educated Christians, and is even taught to the rising generation in
+elementary schools."
+
+In accordance with the wise provisions of the Encyclical
+_Providentissimus Deus_, with which all educated Catholics should make
+themselves familiar, conflicts have been avoided on this, and on other
+points, such as the general theory of evolution and the various problems
+connected with it; the antiquity of man upon the earth and other
+matters as to which science is still uncertain. Some of these points
+might seem to conflict with the Bible and the teachings of the Church.
+As Catholics we can rest assured that the true explanation, whenever it
+emerges, cannot be opposed to the considered teaching of the Church.
+What the Church does--and surely it must be clear that from her
+standpoint she could not do less--is to instruct Catholic men of science
+not to proclaim _as proved facts_ such modern theories--and there are
+many of them--as still remain wholly unproved, when these theories are
+such as might seem to conflict with the teaching of the Church. This is
+very far from saying that Catholics are forbidden to study such
+theories.
+
+On the contrary, they are encouraged to do so, and that, need it be
+said, with the one idea of ascertaining the truth? Men of science,
+Catholic and otherwise, have, as a mere matter of fact, been time and
+again encouraged by Popes and other ecclesiastical authorities to go on
+searching for the truth, never, however, neglecting the wise maxim that
+all things must be proved. So long as a theory is unproved, it must be
+candidly admitted that it is a crime against science to proclaim it to
+be incontrovertible truth, yet this crime is being committed every day.
+It is really against it that the _magisterium_ of the Church is
+exercised. The wholesome discipline which she exercises might also be
+exercised to the great benefit of the ordinary reading public by some
+central scientific authority, can such be imagined, endowed with the
+right to say (and in any way likely to be listened to): "Such and such a
+statement is interesting--even extremely interesting--but so far one
+must admit that no sufficient proof is forthcoming to establish it as a
+fact: it ought not, therefore, to be spoken of as other than a theory,
+nor proclaimed as fact."
+
+Such constraint when rightly regarded is not or would not be a shackling
+of the human intellect, but a kindly and intelligent guidance of those
+unable to form a proper conclusion themselves. Such is the idea of the
+Church in the matter with which we have been dealing.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 23: _Darwiniana_, p. 147.]
+
+  [Footnote 24: See, for example, his _Life and Letters_,
+  i., 307.]
+
+  [Footnote 25: _Hume_, _English Men of Letters Series_, p. 135.]
+
+  [Footnote 26: Of course, it may be argued, no Fellow need have
+  applied for an _imprimatur_; he did it _ex majori cantelâ_ as
+  the lawyers say. This may be so, but the same applies to the
+  ecclesiastical _imprimatur_.]
+
+  [Footnote 27: The review from which the following quotations
+  are made appeared in _Nature_ on January 24, 1889.]
+
+  [Footnote 28: Vol. ii., p. 113.]
+
+  [Footnote 29: _Galileo and His Condemnation_, Catholic Truth
+  Society of England.]
+
+
+
+
+V. SCIENCE AND THE WAR
+
+
+Amongst various important matters now brought to a sharper focus in the
+public eye, few, if any, require more careful attention than that which
+is concerned with science, its value, its position, its teachings, and
+how it should be taught. No one who has followed the domestic
+difficulties due to our neglect of the warnings of scientific men can
+fail to see how we have had to suffer because of the lax conduct of
+those responsible for these things in the past.
+
+Within the first few weeks after the war broke out--to take one
+example--every medical man was the recipient of a document telling him
+of the expected shortage in a number of important drugs and suggesting
+the substitutes which he might employ. It was a timely warning; but it
+need never have been issued if we had not allowed the manufacture of
+drugs, and especially those of the so-called "synthetic" group, to drift
+almost entirely into the hands of the Badische Aniline Fabrik, and
+kindred firms in Germany. This difficulty, now partly overcome, is one
+which never would have arisen but for the deaf ear turned to the
+warnings of the scientific chemists. British pharmaceutical chemists,
+with one or two exceptions, had been relying upon foreign sources not
+only for synthetic drugs but actually for the raw materials of many of
+their preparations--such, for example, as aconite, belladonna, henbane,
+all of which can be freely grown--which even grow wild--in these
+islands; even, incredible as it may seem, for foxglove leaves. These
+things with many others were imported from Germany and Austria. Here
+again leeway has had to be made up; but it ought never to have been
+necessary, and now that the war is over steps should be taken to see
+that it never need be necessary again. The encouragement of British
+herb-gardens and of scientific experiment therein on the best method of
+culture for the raw material of our organic medicines must certainly be
+matters early taken in hand.
+
+The classical example of the mortal injury done to British manufacture
+by the British manufacturer's former contempt for the scientific man is
+that of the aniline dyes, which are so closely associated with the
+synthetic drugs as to form one subject of discussion. Quite early in the
+war dye-stuffs ran short, and there was no means of replenishing the
+stock in Britain, nor even in America, these products having formed the
+staple of a colossal manufacture, with an enormous financial turnover,
+in Germany.
+
+Let us look at the history of these dyes. The first aniline dye was
+discovered quite by accident, in 1856, by the late Professor W. H.
+Perkin. He called it "mauve," from the French word for the mallow, the
+colour of whose flower it somewhat resembled. In 1862 there was an
+International Exhibition in London; and those who remembered it and its
+predecessor of 1851 have declared that the case of aniline
+dye-stuffs--for by that time quite a number of new pigments had been
+discovered--excited at the later the same attention as that given to the
+Koh-i-noor at the earlier. The invention, out of which grew the enormous
+German business already alluded to, and with which has been associated
+the discovery and manufacture of the synthetic drugs, was entirely
+British in its inception and in its early stages. Moreover the raw
+materials on which it depended, namely, gas-tar products, were to be had
+in greater abundance in England than anywhere else. Yet, at the time
+when the war broke out, this industry had been allowed almost entirely
+to drift into German hands.
+
+How was this? Let an expert reply. It was due, he tells us, to the
+neglect of "the repeated warnings which have been issued since that
+time" (_viz._ 1880, by which date the Germans had succeeded in capturing
+the trade in question) "in no uncertain voice by Meldola, Green, the
+Perkins (father and son), and many other English chemists." Further, he
+continues, two causes have invariably been indicated for the transfer of
+this industry to Germany--"first the neglect of organic chemistry in the
+Universities and colleges of this country" (a neglect which has long
+ceased), "and then the disregard by manufacturers of scientific methods
+and assistance and total indifference to the practice of research in
+connection with their processes and products." I remember talking some
+twenty-five years ago to a highly educated young student of Birmingham
+who was of German parentage though of English birth. He had just taken
+the degree of Doctor of Science in London University, and was on the eve
+of abandoning the adopted country of his parents for a position in the
+research laboratories of the Badische company, where he would be one
+among a number of chemists, running into hundreds, all engaged in
+research on gas-tar products. At that moment the great Birmingham
+gas-company was employing the services of one trained chemist.
+
+Such was and is the neglect of science by business men. Could it have
+been otherwise, considering their bringing up? Let me again be
+reminiscent. I suppose the public school in England (not a Catholic
+school, for I was then a Protestant) at which I pursued what were
+described as studies did not in any very marked degree differ from its
+sister schools throughout the country. How was science encouraged there?
+One hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time devoted weekly, not to
+Greek and Latin (that would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the
+writing of Greek and Latin prose and alleged Greek and Latin verse--that
+was the amount of time which was devoted to what was called science. I
+suppose I had an ingrained vocation for science, for it was the only
+subject, except English composition, in which I ever felt interest at
+school. If the vocation had not been there, any interest in the subject
+must necessarily have been slain once for all in me, as I am sure it was
+in scores of others, by the way it was taught; for the instruction was
+confided to the ordinary form-master, who doled out his questions from a
+text-book perfunctorily used and probably heartily despised by a man
+brought up on strict classical or mathematical lines. Our manufacturer
+is brought up in a school of this kind, and it would be a miracle if he
+emerged from it with any respect for science. Things have changed now,
+and for the better, as they have at most of the Universities; but we are
+dealing with the generation of manufacturers of my age who were largely
+responsible for the neglects now in question. Well, the boy left his
+school and went to Oxford or Cambridge, neither of which then greatly
+encouraged science. Its followers were, I believe, known as "Stinks
+Men." At any rate it is only comparatively recently that we have seen
+the splendid developments of to-day in those ancient institutions. One
+relic of the ancient days gives us an illuminating idea of how things
+used to be, just as a fossil shows us the environment of its day.[30]
+Trinity College, Dublin, has fine provision for scientific teaching, and
+a highly competent staff to teach. But in its constitution it shows the
+attitude towards science which till lately informed the older
+Universities.
+
+Trinity College has in its Fellowship system one of the most important
+series of pecuniary rewards perhaps in Europe, of an educational
+character. A man has only once to pass an examination, admittedly one of
+great severity and competitive in character, and thenceforward to go on
+living respectably and doing such duties as are committed to him, to be
+ensured an excellent and increasing income for life. How great the
+rewards are will be gathered from the fact that a distinguished occupant
+of one of these positions some years ago endeavoured--with complete
+success--to enforce on me the importance of the Fellowship examination
+by telling me that he had already received over Ł50,000 in emoluments as
+a result of his success. He has received a good deal more since, and I
+hope will continue to be the recipient of this shower of gold for many
+years to come.[31] No doubt much might be urged for this system, which
+was for a long time popular in China for the selection of Mandarins, and
+I am not criticising it here. What I want to emphasise is that the
+examination for these valuable positions is either classical or
+mathematical, and there it ends. The greatest biologist in the world
+would have as much chance of a Fellowship as the ragged urchin in the
+street unless he could "settle Hoti's business" or elucidate [Greek: P]
+or do other things of that kind. It is a luminous example of what
+was--must we say is?--thought of science in certain academic circles.
+Of course it may be urged--I have actually heard it urged--that nothing
+is science save that which is treatable by mathematical methods. It was
+a kind of inverted M. Jourdain who used this argument, a gentleman who
+imagined himself to have been teaching science during a long life
+without ever having effected what he supposed to be his object. Then,
+again, our manufacturer, whose object in life is to make money, is
+naturally, perhaps even necessarily, affected by the kind of salaries
+which highly trained and highly eminent men of science receive by way of
+reward for their work. Few, if any, receive anything like the emoluments
+attaching to the position of County Court Judge, and I know of only one
+case in which a Professor's income, to the delight and envy of all the
+teaching profession, actually, for a few years, soared somewhat near the
+empyrean of a Puisne Judge's reward.
+
+Perhaps this is not to be wondered at; for Parliament always contains
+many lawyers, and at the moment, I think, not a single scientific
+expert, at least among the Commons. This is not really a sordid
+argument, though it may appear so. The labourer, after all, is worthy of
+his hire; but in the scientific world it very, very seldom happens that
+the hire is worthy of the labourer. Even to this day there is plenty of
+truth in the description of the attitude of Mr. Meagles towards Mr.
+Doyce as detailed by the author of _Little Dorrit_. Perhaps that is
+partly because it is generally the man of business, and not the unhappy
+man of science, who gains the money produced by scientific discoveries.
+These are often, if not usually, made by accident, and by a man on the
+track of something else, on the elucidation of which he is probably so
+intent that he cannot spare time for side-issues, very likely never even
+thinks of them. Sir James Dewar discovered the principle of the "Thermos
+flask" whilst he was working at the exceedingly difficult subject of the
+liquefaction of air. I hope Sir James had the prescience to patent his
+discovery, and reap the reward which was due to him; but, if he did, he
+is one amongst a thousand who never took this trouble and of whom _Sic
+vos non vobis_ might well be said. When Sabatier had shown the
+importance of combinations of hydrogen effected by what is known as a
+catalyst, numerous patents were taken out--by other people, of
+course--on which were founded very flourishing businesses. Sabatier
+profited by none of these--so I understand. He received a Nobel prize
+for his discoveries; but another hath his heritage.
+
+Though science has not received any great encouragement, yet in spite of
+that--the cynic might say because of that--it has made amazing progress
+during the past half-century. Mr. Chesterton somewhere notes that "a
+time may easily come when we shall see the great outburst of science in
+the Nineteenth Century as something quite as splendid, brief, unique,
+and ultimately abandoned as the outburst of art at the Renaissance."
+That, of course, may be so, but as to the outburst there can be no
+question, nor of its persistence to the present day. That also is surely
+a curious phenomenon; for, as regards most other things, we seem to be
+in the trough of the wave, and not merely in these islands but all over
+the civilised world. In Art, in Music, in Literature, in the Drama, it
+would be difficult to argue in favour of a pre-eminence, or even of an
+equality of the present age, comparing it with its predecessors.
+
+Take the politicians of the world; it is perhaps difficult, even
+foolish, for us who are living with them to prophesy with any
+approximation of accuracy what the historian of a future day may say
+about them. He may sum them up as respectable, honest mediocrities
+trying to do their best under exceptionally difficult circumstances; he
+may put them lower; he may put them higher; he may differentiate between
+those of different nations; but there is little doubt that, with the
+exception of the American President, he will not be able to point to any
+one of the calibre of Pitt or of Bismarck or of the less severely tried
+Disraeli or Gladstone.
+
+But just the reverse is the case in science, which has men of the very
+first rank living, working, and discovering to-day. There are indeed
+signs that even our Government is cognizant of this. The creation of a
+Department of Industrial Scientific Research, the provision of a
+substantial income for the same, the increase of research-grants to
+learned societies, these and other things show that some attempt will be
+made to recognise the value of science to the State. Further, the
+lesson seems to have gone home to some few at least that there is no
+difference between what have been absurdly called Pure and Applied
+Science, since so very many "Applied" discoveries--such as the
+"Thermos"--arose in the course of what certainly would have been
+described as "Pure" researches.
+
+It is to the public advantage that every educated person should know
+something about science; nor is this by any means as big or difficult an
+achievement as some may imagine. It is not necessary to teach any very
+large number of persons very much about any particular science or group
+of sciences. What is really important is that people should imbibe some
+knowledge of scientific methods--of the meaning of science. This can be
+done from the study of quite a few fundamental propositions of any one
+science under a good teacher--a first essential. Any person thus
+educated will, for the remainder of his life, be able at least to
+understand what is meant by science and the scientific method of
+approaching a problem. He will not, like an educational troglodyte at a
+recent Conference, refuse to describe anything as science which is not
+capable of mathematical treatment, nor allude compendiously to
+physiological study as "the cutting up of frogs." In a word, he will be
+an educated man, which can no more be said of one ignorant of science
+than it can be of one whose mind has never experienced the softening
+influence of letters.
+
+So far, everybody whose opinion counts seems to be agreed; but in any
+plea for an extended and improved teaching of science, certain points
+ought not to be left out of count. In the first place, science is not
+the key to all locks; there are many important things--some of the most
+important things in life--with which it has nothing whatever to do. It
+will be well to recall Mr. Balfour's words at the opening of the
+National Physical Laboratory: "Science depends on measurement, and
+things not measurable are therefore excluded, or tend to be excluded,
+from its attention. But Life and Beauty and Happiness are not
+measurable. If there could be a unit of happiness, politics might begin
+to be scientific." It follows that there are a number of subjects on
+which the scientific man is just as fit, or as unfit, to express an
+opinion as any other man. The intense preoccupation which serious
+scientific studies demand, may render the man who is engaged therein
+even less competent to express an opinion on alien subjects than one
+whose attention, less concentrated, has time to range over diverse
+fields of study. Readers of Darwin's _Life_ will remember his confession
+that he had lost all taste for music, art, and literature; that he
+"could not endure to read a line of poetry" and found Shakespeare "so
+intolerably dull that it nauseated" him; and finally, that his mind
+seemed "to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out
+of a large collection of facts."
+
+Despite this warning as to the limits of science, we have no lack of
+instances of scientific men posing as authorities on subjects on which
+they had no real right to be heard, and, what is worse, being accepted
+as such by the uninstructed crowd. Thus Professor Huxley, who, as some
+one once said, "made science respectable," was wont to utter pontifical
+pronouncements on the subject of Home Rule for Ireland. His knowledge of
+that country was quite rudimentary, and his visits to it had been as few
+and as brief as if he had been its Sovereign; but that did not prevent
+him from delivering judgment, nor unfortunately deter many from
+following that judgment as if it had been inspired. I am not now arguing
+as to the rights and wrongs of Huxley's view on the matter in question:
+I have my own opinion on that. What I am urging is that his position,
+whether as a zoologist or, incidentally, as a great master of the
+English language, in no way entitled him to express an opinion or
+rendered him a better authority on such a question than any casual
+fellow-traveller in a railway carriage might easily be.
+
+This is bad enough; but what is far worse is when scientific experts on
+the strength of their study of Nature assume the right of uttering
+judicial pronouncements on moral and sociological questions, judgments
+some at least of which are subversive of both decency and liberty. Thus
+we have lately been told that it is "wanton cruelty" to keep a weak or
+sickly child alive; and the medical man, under a reformed system of
+medical ethics, is to have leave and licence to put an end to its life
+in a painless manner. To what enormities and dastardly agreements this
+might lead need hardly be suggested; and I am quite confident that the
+members of the honourable profession of physic, to which I am proud to
+belong, have no desire whatever for such a reform of the law or of their
+ethics. Then we are told in the same address (Bateson, _British
+Association Addresses in Australia_, 1914) that on the whole a decline
+in the birth-rate is rather a good thing, and that families averaging
+four children are quite enough to keep the world going comfortably. The
+date of this address will be noted; and the fact that the war, which was
+then just beginning, has probably caused its author and has caused
+everybody else to see the utter futility of such assertions.
+
+However, if we are to rear only four children per marriage, and if we
+are to give the medical man liberty to weed out the weaklings, it
+behoves us to see that the children whom we produce are of the best
+quality. Let us, therefore, hie to the stud-farm, observe its methods
+and proceed to apply them to the human race. We must definitely prevent
+feeble-minded persons from propagating their species. Within limits,
+that is a proposition with which all instructed persons would agree,
+though few, we imagine, would put their opinions so uncharitably as the
+lecturer did: "The union of such social vermin we should no more permit
+than we would allow parasites to breed on our own bodies." But we must
+go farther than this, and introduce all sorts of restrictions on
+matrimony, until finally it comes to be a matter to be arranged under
+rigid laws by a jury of elderly persons--all, we may feel perfectly
+sure, "cranks" of the first water.
+
+In what _milieu_ are their findings to take effect? It is very important
+to consider that. The author from whom I have been quoting tells us what
+we want to know. Man, he tells us, is "a rather long-lived animal, with
+great powers of enjoyment, if he does not deliberately forgo them." In
+the past, we are told, "superstitious and mythical ideas of sin have
+predominantly controlled these powers." We have changed all that now; as
+the parent in _Punch_ says to the crying child by the seashore, "You've
+come out to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself you shall!" So we are to
+plunge into the whirlpool of eugenic delights without any fear of that
+"bugbear of a hell" which another writer congratulates us on getting rid
+of. We can, it appears, enter upon our eugenic experiment without a
+single moral scruple to restrain us or a single religious restriction to
+interfere with us. In this soil is the plant to be grown, and the first
+weed to be eradicated is that of the right of personal choice of a
+partner for life, or for such other term as the law under the new
+_régime_ may require. Jack is to be torn from weeping Jill, and handed
+over to reluctant Joan, to whom he is personally displeasing and for
+whom he has not the slightest desire, and handed over because the
+Breeding Committee think it is likely to prove advantageous for the
+Coming Race. All that may be possible--or may not--but what then? When
+you are carrying out Mendelian experiments on peas, you can enclose your
+flowers in muslin bags and prevent anything interfering with your
+observations. And in the stud-farm you can keep the occupants shut up.
+
+But what are you going to do with Jack? and with Jill? And still more
+with Joan? They cannot be permanently isolated, neither are they
+restrained by any "mythical ideas of sin." They have been educated to
+the idea that their highest duty is to enjoy themselves. Why should they
+not do what they like? And consequently, as any reasoning person can
+see, "The Inevitable" must happen; and where is your experiment and
+where the Coming Race? It is perfectly useless for doctrinaires to
+argue, as doctrinaires will, about ethical restraints. Nature has _no_
+ethical restraints; and any ethical restraints which man has come from
+that higher nature of his which he does not share with the lower
+creation. What those whom the late Mr. Devas so aptly called
+"after-Christians" always forget is that the humane, the Christian side
+of life, which they as well as others exhibit, is due to the influence,
+lingering if you like, of Christianity. They ignore or forget the pit
+out of which they were digged.
+
+By another Eugenist we are told that willy-nilly every sound, healthy
+person of either sex must get married or at least betake him or herself
+to the business of propagating the race. That at least is the essence of
+his singularly offensive dictum that since the celibacy of the Catholic
+clergy and of members of Religious Orders deprives the State of a
+number of presumably excellent parents, "if monastic orders and
+institutions are to continue, they should be open only to the
+eugenically unfit."[32] If the religious call is not to be permitted to
+dispense a man or woman from entering the estate of matrimony, it may be
+assumed that nothing else, except an unfavourable report from the
+committee of selection, will do so. And, further, as the one object of
+all this is to bring super-children into the world, we must also assume
+that those who fail in this duty will find themselves in peril of the
+law.
+
+Surely what has been set down shows that whatever scientific reputation
+the writers in question possess, and it is undeniably great, it has not
+equipped them, one will not merely say with moral or religious ideas,
+but with an ordinary knowledge of human nature. It has not equipped them
+with any conception apparently of political possibilities; and it has
+left them without any of that saving salt, a sense of humour. Like
+Huxley, they have started out to give opinions without first having made
+themselves familiar with the subject on which they were to deliver
+judgment.
+
+It is perhaps little to be wondered at that the intense preoccupation
+which the study of science entails should tend to induce those whose
+attention is constantly fixed on Nature to imagine that from Nature can
+be drawn not only lessons of physical life but lessons also of conduct.
+Of course this is quite wrong; for Nature has no moral lesson to teach
+us. We are told to go to the ant--at least the sluggard is--but for
+what? To amend his sluggardliness. No one has ever suggested that we
+should go to Nature to learn to be humble, kindly, unselfish, tolerant,
+and Christian, in our dealings with others; and for this excellent
+reason, that none of these things can be learnt from Nature. Science is
+neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral; and, as we have seen a
+thousand times in this present war, its kindest gifts to man can be
+used, and are used, for his cruel destruction. In this war,
+pre-eminently amongst all wars, we have the application of pure natural
+principles unameliorated by the influences of Christianity, or of
+chivalry, Christianity's offspring. As Sir Robert Borden has summed it
+up, German kultur is an attempt "to impose upon us the law of the
+jungle."
+
+Natural Selection, some would have us believe, is the dominant law of
+living nature, and all would agree that it is an important law. Let us
+then, if we are to follow Nature, put it into practice. But Natural
+Selection means the Survival of the Fittest in the Struggle for Life. It
+consequently means the Extermination of the Less Fit, a little fact
+often left out of count. It means in three words "Might is Right," and
+was not that exactly the proposition by which we were confronted in this
+war? If Natural Selection be our only guide, let us sink hospital
+ships, destroy innocent villages and towns, exterminate our weaker
+opponents in any way that seems best to us. It was all summed up
+centuries ago by the author of the Book of Wisdom: "Let us oppress the
+poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey
+hairs of the aged. But let your strength be the law of justice: for that
+which is feeble is found to be nothing worth." That is Natural Selection
+in operation in human life when human beings have been stripped of all
+"mythical ideas of Sin:" not a pretty picture nor a condition of affairs
+under which we should like long to exist. Some of the other resemblances
+are less dreadful, but none the less instructive. Let us take the matter
+of Mimicry. There is a form of protective mimicry whereby the living
+thing is like unto its surroundings, and thus escapes its enemy. We find
+it in warfare in the use of khaki dress, in white overalls in snow-time,
+in other such expedients. But there is also a form of Aggressive Mimicry
+in which a deadly thing makes itself look like something innocent, as
+the wolf tried to look in "Little Red Riding Hood." "The Germans were
+beginning their attack on Haumont. Their front-line skirmishers, to
+throw us into confusion, had donned caps which were a faint imitation of
+our own, and also provided themselves with Red Cross brassards" (_The
+Battle of Verdun._ H. Dugard). Not to be tedious on this point, which
+really does not require to be laboured, let me finish with one quotation
+from a vivid series of war-pictures. Boyd Cable is writing of men in
+the trenches: "Civilised Man, in his latest art of war, has gone back to
+be taught one more simple lesson by the beast of the field and the birds
+of the air; the armed hosts are hushed and stilled by the passing
+air-machine, exactly as the finches and field-mice of hedgerow and ditch
+and field are frozen to stillness by the shadow of a hovering hawk, the
+beat of its passing wing."
+
+No; an existence passed under conditions of this kind and as the normal
+state of affairs is not an existence to be contemplated with equanimity.
+We are anxious that science and scientific teaching should be assisted
+in every possible way. But let us be quite clear that while science has
+much to teach us and we much to learn from her, there are things as to
+which she has no message to the world. The Minor Prophets of science are
+never tired of advising theologians to keep their hands off science. The
+Major Prophets are too busy to occupy themselves with such polemics. But
+the theologian is abundantly in his right in saying to the scientific
+writer "Hands off morals!" for with morality science has nothing to do.
+Let us at any rate avoid that form of kultur which consists in bending
+Natural History to the teaching of conduct, uncorrected by any Christian
+injunctions to soften its barbarities.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 30: Since these lines were written, this state of
+  affairs has come to an end and the first Fellow has been
+  elected for his purely scientific attainments, in the person of
+  the distinguished geologist, Professor Joly, F.R.S.]
+
+  [Footnote 31: It was the late distinguished Provost, Sir John
+  Mahaffy, at whose instance the change in the Fellowship system
+  was introduced.]
+
+  [Footnote 32: Conklyn, _Heredity and Environment in the
+  Development of Men_. Princeton University Press, 1915.]
+
+
+
+
+VI. HEREDITY AND "ARRANGEMENT"
+
+
+Some years ago, when I was delivering a lecture at the Cathedral Hall of
+Westminster, in the course of the questioning which took place at the
+termination of the discourse, which was on vitalism, I was asked by one
+who signed his paper, "So and So, Atheist," "What would you say if you
+saw a duck come out of a hen's egg?" I recognised at once the idea at
+the back of the question and appreciated the fact that it had been asked
+by one who, as some one has said, "called himself an advanced
+free-thinker, but was really a very ignorant and vulgar person who was
+suffering from a surfeit of the ideas of certain people cleverer than
+himself." But, as a full discussion of the matter would have taken at
+least as long as the lecture which I had just concluded, my reply was
+that before I attempted to explain it I would wait to see the duck come
+out of the hen's egg, since no man had as yet witnessed such an event. I
+do not know whether my atheistical questioner was satisfied or not, but
+I heard no more of him. But, after all, is it not a marvellous thing
+that a duck never does come out of a hen's egg? If everything happens by
+chance, as some would have us believe, why is it that a duck does not
+occasionally emerge from a hen's egg? Surely this is a _miraculum_, a
+thing to be wondered at, yet so common that it goes unnoticed, like many
+other wonderful things which are also matters of common everyday
+occurrence, such as the spinning of the earth on its own axis and its
+course round the sun and through the heavens.
+
+If we pursue this question further we shall begin to remember that
+creatures more nearly related to one another also "breed true." The hen
+and the duck are both birds, but they are not so nearly allied to one
+another as the lion and the tiger, both of which are _Felidć_, or cats.
+Yet no one ever expects that a tiger will be born of a lioness, or _vice
+versa_. Further, the pug and the greyhound are both of them dogs: the
+name _canis domesticus_ applies to both, and one would be distinguished
+from the other in a scientific list as "Var. (_i.e._ variety) 'pug,'" or
+"Var. 'greyhound.'" Yet one can imagine the surprise of a breeder if a
+greyhound was born in his carefully selected and guarded kennel of pugs.
+In a word, not only species, but varieties do tend to breed true; the
+child does resemble its parent or parents. No doubt the resemblance is
+not absolute: there is variation as well as inheritance. Sometimes the
+variation may be recognised as a feature possessed by a grandparent or
+even by some collateral relative such as an uncle or great-uncle;
+sometimes this may not be the case, though the non-recognition of the
+likeness does not in any way preclude the possibility that the
+peculiarity may have been also possessed by some other member of the
+family. But on the whole the offspring does closely resemble its
+parents; that is to say, not only the species and the variety but the
+individual "breeds true." "Look like dey are bleedzed to take atter der
+pa," as Uncle Remus said when he was explaining how the rabbit comes to
+have a bobtail. Moreover this resemblance is not merely in the great
+general features. Apart from monstrosities, the children of human beings
+are human beings; the children of white parents have white skins, those
+of black progenitors are black. Commonly, though not always by any
+means, the children of dark-haired parents are themselves dark-haired,
+and so on. But smaller features are also transmitted, and transmitted
+too for many generations; for example, the well-known case of the
+Hapsburg lip, visible in so many portraits of Spanish monarchs and their
+near relatives, and visible in life to-day. Again, there are families in
+which the inner part of one eyebrow has the hairs growing upwards
+instead of in the ordinary way, a feature which is handed on from one
+generation to another. Even more minute features than this have been
+known to be transmissible and transmitted, such as a tiny pit in the
+skin on the ear or on the face. In fact, there is hardly any feature, no
+matter how small, which may not become a hereditary possession.
+
+If in-and-in breeding occur, as it may do amongst human beings in a
+locality much removed from other places of habitation, it may even
+happen that what may be looked upon as a variety of the human race may
+arise, though when it arises it is always easy to wipe it out and
+restore things to the normal by the introduction of fresh blood, to use
+the misleading term commonly employed, where the Biblical word "seed"
+comes much nearer to the facts.
+
+Thus there is a well-authenticated case in France (in Brittany if I
+remember right) of a six-fingered race which existed for a number of
+generations in a very isolated place and was restored to
+five-fingeredness when an increase in the populousness of the district
+permitted a wider selection in the matter of marriages.
+
+And similarly, not long ago an account was published of an albino race
+somewhere in Canada which had acquired a special name.
+
+Perhaps it has been wiped out by this time by wider marriages, though
+these might be effected with greater difficulty by albinos than by
+six-fingered persons. At any rate no one can doubt that it might at any
+time be wiped out by such marriages, though even when apparently wiped
+out, sporadic cases might be expected to occur: what the breeders call
+"throws-back," when they see an animal which resembles some ancestor
+further back in the line of descent than its actual progenitors.
+Certainly the most remarkable instance of the reliance which we have
+come to feel respecting this matter of inheritance is that which was
+afforded by a recent case of disputed paternity interesting on both
+sides of the Atlantic, since the events in dispute occurred in America
+and the property and the dispute concerning it were in England.
+
+It was obviously a most difficult and disputable case, but the judge, a
+shrewd observer, noticed, when the putative father was in the box, a
+feature in his countenance which seemed closely to resemble what was to
+be seen in the child which he claimed to be his own. A careful
+examination of the parents and of the child was made by an eminent
+sculptor, accustomed to minute observation of small features of variety
+in those sitting to him as models.
+
+He reported and showed to the court that there were remarkable features
+in the head of the child which resembled, on the one hand an unusual
+configuration in the mother--or the woman who claimed to be the
+mother--and on the other a well-marked feature in her husband. And as a
+result the father and mother won their case, and were proclaimed the
+parents of the child because of the resemblance of these features; and,
+if we think for a moment, we shall see, because also of the reliance
+which the human race has come to place in the fidelity of inheritance,
+of its perfect certainty, so to speak, that a duck will not come out of
+a hen's egg, and the fact of this reliance on a generally received truth
+remains, whatever may be said as to the legal aspect of such evidence.
+
+Inheritance is a fact recognised by everybody, and the only reason why
+we refuse to wonder at it is because, like other wonderful yet everyday
+facts, such as the growth of a great tree from a tiny seed, it _is_ so
+everyday that we have ceased to wonder at it. It is there: we know that.
+But have we any kind of idea how it comes about? The duck does not, as a
+matter of common experience, come out of a hen's egg. Why does it come
+out of a duck's egg? Why doesn't it come out, if only rarely, from a
+hen's egg? In other words, do we know what it is that explains
+inheritance or how it is that there is such a thing as inheritance?
+Well, candour obliges me to say that we do not. In spite of all the work
+which has been expended upon this question we are totally ignorant of
+the mechanism of heredity. Nevertheless it will be instructive to glance
+at the theories which have been put forward to explain this matter.
+
+All living things spring from a small germ, and in the vast majority of
+cases this germ is the product in part of the male and in part of the
+female parent. It is therefore natural that we should in the first place
+turn our attention to this germ and ask ourselves whether there is
+anything in its construction which will give us the key of the mystery.
+There is not, at least there is nothing definite as shown by our most
+powerful microscopes. To be sure there is a remarkable substance, called
+chromatin because of its capacity for taking up certain dyes, which
+evidently plays some profoundly important part in the processes of
+development. We may suspect that this is the thing which carries the
+physical characteristics from one generation to another, but we cannot
+prove it; and though some authorities think that it is, others deny it.
+Even if it be, it can hardly be supposed that microscopic research will
+ever be able to establish the fact, and that for reasons which must now
+be explained.
+
+Let us suppose that we visit a vast botanic garden, and in the seed-time
+of each of the plants therein contained select from each plant a single
+ripe seed. It is clear that, if we take home that collection of seeds,
+we shall have in them a miniature picture of the garden from which they
+were culled, or at least we shall be in possession of the potentiality
+of such a garden, for, if we sow these seeds and have the good fortune
+to see them all develop, take root and grow, we shall actually possess a
+replica of the garden from which they came. Not exactly, it may be
+urged, for the distribution or arrangement of the seeds must have been
+carefully looked to, if the gardens are to resemble each other otherwise
+than in the mere possession of identical plants. I admit the truth of
+this, but cannot for the moment discuss it. At any rate we should have
+the same plants in both gardens.
+
+On this analogy, many have suggested that every organ in the body--we
+must go further, and say that every marked feature in every organ in the
+body--is represented in the germ by a seed which can grow, under
+favourable circumstances, into just such another organ or feature of an
+organ. This was the theory put forward by Darwin under the name of
+"pangenesis," and by others under other titles with which it is
+unnecessary to burden these pages. All these theories have been summed
+together under the name "micromeristic," that is small-fragmented, or
+again, "particulate," since they all postulate the existence in the germ
+of innumerable small fragments--seeds--which are capable of growing into
+complete plants or organs under favourable circumstances. Again, this,
+even if true, does not by any means exhaust the matter, for it does not
+explain why the seed of the eye implants itself and grows in the right
+place in the head instead of making a home for itself, let us say, in
+the sole of the foot. But again we must pass over that matter.
+
+There is nothing inherently impossible in this theory; indeed, if we
+allow that the transmission of inheritable characteristics is purely
+material, and it may be, there is only one other conceivable way in
+which it can occur. It is true that the seeds must be almost
+innumerable, but the germ, though small, is capable of accommodating an
+almost innumerable number of independent factors, if the prevalent views
+as to the constitution of matter are to be believed. And, as it is quite
+inconceivable that we can ever have microscopes which could detect such
+minute objects as the ultimate bricks of which the atom--no, not even
+the atoms themselves which compose the germ--consists, it is impossible
+that we should be able to say that the seed-theory is untrue. Even if we
+could see these ultimate constituents it is in the last degree unlikely
+that they would have any resemblance to the things which are, on this
+theory to grow from them, any more than the acorn resembles the oak
+which is to spring from it.
+
+But observe! the germ on this view must contain not only seeds from the
+immediate parents but from many, perhaps all, of the older generations
+of the family, otherwise how are we to account for the appearance of
+ancestral peculiarities which the father and mother do not show?
+Moreover, since very minute things, like the inner angle of the eyebrow,
+may independently vary, there must be an enormous number of seeds apart
+altogether from the considerations alluded to in the last paragraph. And
+many authorities who have closely considered the question have come to
+the conclusion that the complexities introduced would be so great that
+it is impossible to believe in any micromeristic theory.
+
+Then, of course, we must look out for some other explanation, and some
+have suggested that it is to be found in memory--the memory of the germ
+of what it was once part and the anticipation of what it may once more
+be. This again is an explanation not susceptible of proof along the
+lines of a chemical experiment, but not necessarily, therefore, untrue.
+Of course there are two ideas as to memory. If we are pure materialists
+and imagine every memory in our possession as something stamped, in some
+wholly incomprehensible manner, on some cell of our brain and looked at
+there, by some wholly inconceivable agency, when we sit down to think of
+past days, then we must look on the germ, under the "mnemic" or memory
+theory as consisting of fragments each of them impressed with the
+"memory" of some particular organ or feature of the body, and lo! we
+find ourselves back again in micromerism. If we are to take a
+non-materialistic view of memory we are plunged into a metaphysical
+discussion which cannot here be pursued. A third explanation, which by
+the way explains nothing, is that the whole matter is one of
+"arrangement," to which we shall return at the close of this paper.
+
+The mechanism of inheritance must either be physical[33] or it must be
+non-physical; that is, immaterial. This is what emerges from our
+discussion, and so far as science goes to-day it must be admitted that
+neither of these explanations can be said to be accepted generally by
+men of science or proved--perhaps even capable of proof--by scientific
+methods. If we know little or nothing about the mechanism of
+inheritance, can we and do we know anything about the laws under which
+it works, or has it any laws? Or are its operations a mere
+chance-medley? It is hardly necessary to ask the latter question, for
+chance-medley could not lead to regular operations--operations so
+regular that a court of law may act upon their evidence. Yes: we answer
+to the first question very lightly but without perhaps always thinking
+what that affirmative answer implies, a point to be considered in a
+moment. It may at once be said that we do now know a good deal about
+the laws under which inheritance works itself out, and that knowledge,
+as most people are now aware, is due to the quiet and for a time
+forgotten labours of Johann Gregor Mendel, once Abbot of the Augustinian
+Abbey of Brünn, a prelate of that Church which loud-voiced ignoramuses
+are never tired of proclaiming to have been from the beginning even down
+to the present day the impassioned and deadly enemy of all scientific
+progress. Mendel saw that former workers at inheritance had been
+directing their attention to the _tout ensemble_ of an individual or
+natural object; his idea was analytical in its nature, for he directed
+his attention to individual characteristics, such as stature or colour,
+or the like. And having thus directed his attention and confined his
+labours mainly to plants, since the study of generations of most animals
+is too lengthy a process for one man to carry out, he did in fact
+discover that there are very definite laws, capable even of numerical
+statement, under which inheritance acts. There is no need to explain or
+discuss them here: suffice it to say that there _are_ such laws,[34] as
+is now admitted by an overwhelming majority of the biologists of to-day.
+Mendel's facts were hidden in a somewhat obscure journal; they lay
+dormant, much to his annoyance, during his lifetime. Years after his
+death his papers were unearthed, and his discoveries have been
+proclaimed as being as fundamental to biology as those of Newton and
+Dalton to other sciences.
+
+There are, then, laws. That means one of two things: either that these
+laws arose by chance-medley, or that some one enacted them. It seems
+impossible, when one surveys the orderly operations of Nature, among
+which are those conducted under the laws known by the name of their
+discoverer, Mendel--it seems wholly impossible that these operations
+arose by chance-medley. To me, at any rate, any such explanation is
+wholly unthinkable. But if it be an impossible explanation, as I and
+many thousands, not to say millions, of other persons believe, then
+there is no other way out of it than that these operations must have
+been planned by some one; in other words, that there must have been a
+Creator and Deviser of the world.
+
+People hide from this explanation, and one of the favourite sandbanks in
+which this particular kind of human ostrich plunges its head is
+"Nature." "Nature does this," and "Nature does that," forgetting
+entirely the fact that "Nature" is a mere personification and means
+either chance-medley or a Creator, according to the old dilemma. There
+is a very curious example of this inability or unwillingness to
+admit--perhaps even to understand--the force of this argument exhibited
+by those to whom one would suppose that it would come home with
+overpowering force: I mean, of course, the Mendelians.
+
+The most learned of these, and one of the most open-minded of men,
+hints in one place that though he does not think it necessary himself to
+believe it, yet it might at least be suggested that, if in a certain
+organism we find things so placed that a certain combination is bound to
+emerge in a certain generation, such a state of affairs might have been
+prearranged. Now, if it was prearranged, the awful fact emerges that
+there must have been an arranger; in other words, a creative power. This
+explanation is taboo in certain circles. But one may reasonably ask,
+"What then?" Is it really suggested that these orderly sets of
+occurrences may occur not once or twice only but thousands and thousands
+of times, and this may all happen by chance? A very distant acquaintance
+with the mathematics of probability will show that this is a wholly
+untenable theory. We are generally answered by some purely verbal
+explanation, like the personification of "Nature" already alluded to.
+
+Thus, in a recent discussion on inheritance in a Presidential Address to
+the British Association, to which I have already alluded, the writer
+with whose explanation I have just been dealing states that he thinks it
+"unlikely" that the factors of inheritance are "in any simple or literal
+sense material particles," and proceeds thus: "I suspect rather that
+their properties depend on some phenomenon of arrangement." Now, in the
+first place, this is no explanation at all, for the mechanism of
+inheritance must be either material or immaterial. If there is a
+phenomenon of "arrangement" there must be something to be "arranged,"
+and this something can hardly be other than material if it is to be
+"arranged" at all. But let that pass. What is far more important is to
+remember that if a thing is to be "arranged" there must be somebody to
+"arrange" it, for chance-medley cannot "arrange" anything in an orderly
+manner; or if it could do so once, cannot be supposed capable of doing
+it a second time in a precisely similar manner, not to say capable of
+doing it countless thousands of times.
+
+If we go into a great museum our first idea, perhaps our last, concerns
+the arrangement found therein. But it may safely be said that no sane
+person ever entertained that idea without being perfectly aware that the
+arrangement was made by human hands, controlled, in the last resort, by
+the brain of the curator of the museum. Now, in a sense, the living body
+is a museum containing specimens of different kinds of cells. There are
+brain-cells, liver-cells, bone-cells, scores of different varieties of
+cells, and all of them, so to speak, are arranged in their appropriate
+cases.
+
+If we go to the brain-case we can search it through and through without
+finding a liver-cell, any more than we should find a typical brain-cell
+embedded in the marrow of one of the bones. The different specimens all
+occupy their appropriate positions. How did they get there? The future
+animal, like animals of all kinds, including man, commences as a single
+cell. All save a few interesting but at present negligible cases are
+composed of elements drawn from male and female parents. This cell
+divides up into a multitude of others. At first these are to all
+appearances identical, but later they begin to differentiate, at first
+into three classes and afterwards into the multitude of different cells
+of which the body is composed. Further, these groups of cells become
+aggregated in appropriate groups, cells of one kind uniting with cells
+of the same kind and with no others. Here we have to do with
+arrangement, consummately skilful arrangement, an arrangement which
+practically never fails, for, leaving aside the case of monstrosity, a
+consideration of which would detain us too long, not merely are the
+various cells all placed in their proper positions, as we have seen, but
+their aggregation, the individual, is so formed as to belong to the
+proper compartment of that large museum, the world--the same compartment
+as that occupied by his progenitors. Neither the particulate nor the
+chemical theories help us here. The mnemic would, but it has its initial
+and insuperable difficulty, pointed out in another article in this
+volume, that, as you must have an experience before you can remember it,
+it in no way accounts for the first operation of arrangement. As to the
+material explanations, particulate or chemical, they amount to something
+like this: you have half a cart-load of bricks from one yard and half a
+cart-load from another, and when the bricks are dumped down in an
+appropriate place they form a little house, just like those occupied by
+the managers of the brickyards. So they may, but no one in his sense
+supposes that they will thus arrange themselves of their own power.
+Some one must arrange them. Who arranges the tiny bricks of which the
+animal body consists, or what arranges them? To revert to our previous
+example of the garden; suppose that we bring back from that which we
+desire to copy a bag of seeds representing all the plants which it
+contains. We have a plot of land of the same size as our example; we dig
+it and we dung it and then we scatter our seeds perfectly haphazard over
+its surface. What are the odds as to their coming up in an exactly
+similar pattern to those in the other garden. Mathematicians, I suppose,
+could calculate the probabilities, but they must be infinitesimally
+small. Yet in the case of the animal the pattern is always observed.
+
+It is quite useless for any one, however eminent an authority he may be,
+to dismiss the matter by saying "It is a phenomenon of arrangement," for
+that begs the whole question. A Martian visitor taken to Westminster
+Abbey and told that its construction was a "phenomenon of arrangement"
+might be expected to turn a scornful eye upon his cicerone and reply,
+"Any fool can see that, but who arranged it?"
+
+Hence, though wild horses would not drag such an admission from many, we
+are irresistibly compelled to adopt the theory of a Creator and a
+Maintainer also of nature and its operations--so-called--if we are to
+escape from the absurdities involved in any other explanation. Thus
+there are very important and fundamental matters to be deduced from the
+very little which we know about inheritance, just as there are from a
+hundred and one other lines of consideration related to this world and
+its contents. We do not know very much--it may fairly be said we _know_
+nothing as to the vehicle of inheritance. We know a little, but it is
+still a very little even in comparison with what we may yet come to know
+as the result of careful and long-continued experiment, about the laws
+of inheritance. What we do learn from our knowledge, such as it is, is
+the fact that we can give no intelligent or intelligible explanation of
+the facts brought before us except on the hypothesis of a Creator and
+Maintainer of all things.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 33: A third explanation, that the mechanism of
+  inheritance is of a chemical character, is now being put
+  forward, and some mention of this view, which is by no means
+  one of general acceptance, will be found in another article in
+  this volume.]
+
+  [Footnote 34: An account of them will be found in _A Century of
+  Scientific Thought_, by the present writer, published by
+  Messrs. Burns & Oates.]
+
+
+
+VII. "SPECIAL CREATION"
+
+
+Professor Scott, of Princeton, has recently given to the public in his
+Westbrook Lectures[35] an exceedingly impartial, convincing, and lucid
+statement of the evidence for the theory of evolution or transformism.
+On one point of terminology a few observations may not be amiss, since
+there is a certain amount of confusion still existing in the minds of
+many persons which can be and ought to be cleared up. Throughout his
+book Professor Scott contrasts evolution with what he calls "special
+creation." In so doing he is evidently in no way anxious to deny the
+fact that there is a Creator, and that evolution may fairly be regarded
+as His method of creation. In one passage he expressly states that
+"acceptance of the theory of evolution by no means excludes belief in a
+creative plan."
+
+And again, when dealing with the palćontological evidence in favour of
+evolution, he points out that Cuvier and Agassiz, examining it as it was
+known in their day, interpreted the facts as the carrying out of a
+systematic creative plan, an interpretation which the author claims "is
+not at all invalidated by the acceptance of the evolutionary theory." He
+is not, we need hardly say, in any way singular in taking up this
+attitude, since it was held by Darwin, by Wallace, by Huxley, and by
+other sturdy defenders of the doctrine of evolution.
+
+Yet, just as at the time that Darwin's views were first made public,
+many thought that they were subversive of Christianity, so, even now,
+some whose acquaintance with the problem and its history is of a
+superficial character, are inclined when they see the word creation,
+even with the qualifying adjective "special" prefixed to it, used in
+contradistinction to evolution, to imagine that the theory of creation,
+and of course of a Creator, must fall to the ground if evolution should
+be proved to be the true explanation of living things and their
+diversities.
+
+It is more than a little difficult for us, living at the present day, to
+understand this curious frame of mind; yet it certainly existed, and
+existed where it might least have been expected to exist. Nor is it
+quite extinct to-day, though it only lingers in the less instructed
+class of persons. The misconception arose from a confusion between the
+fact and the method of creation. As to the former, no Catholic, no
+Christian, no theist has any kind of doubt; indeed there are those who
+could not be classified under any of those categories who still would be
+prepared to admit that there must be a First Cause as the explanation
+of the universe. Some of them, whose reasoning is a little difficult to
+follow, seem to be content with an immanent, blind god, a mere
+mainspring to the clock, making it move, no doubt, but otherwise
+powerless. If we neglect--in a mathematical sense--those who adopt the
+agnostic attitude; content themselves with the formula _ignoramus et
+ignorabimus_ of Du Bois Reymond, and confine their investigations to the
+machine as a going machine without inquiring how it came to be a machine
+or what set it to work, we shall, I think, find that most people who
+have really thought out the question admit that the only reasonable
+explanation of things as they are, is the postulation of a Free First
+Cause; in other words, an Omnipotent Creator of the universe. Such, of
+course, is the teaching of the Scriptures and of the Church, and it must
+be admitted that neither of them carries us very much further in this
+matter. In fact, whilst both are perfectly clear and definite about the
+fact of creation, neither of them has much to say about the method. Yet,
+as all admit, evolution concerns only the method and tells us absolutely
+nothing about the cause.
+
+Being omnipotent, it is obvious that its Maker might have created the
+universe in any way which seemed good to Him--for example, all at once
+out of nothing just as it stands at this moment. Such a thing would not
+be impossible to Omnipotence; and, as we know, Fallopius, suddenly
+confronted by the problems of fossils in the sixteenth century, did
+suggest that they were created just as they were, and that they had
+never been anything else. So did Philip Gosse some two and a half
+centuries later.
+
+There is nothing more sure than that the world was not created just as
+it is. Reason and Scripture both teach us that, and geology makes it
+quite clear that the appearance of living things upon the earth has been
+successive; that groups of living things, like the giant saurians, which
+were once the dominant zoological objects, had their day and have gone,
+as we may suppose, for ever. A few very lowly forms, like the
+lamp-shells, have persisted almost throughout the history of life on the
+earth, but on the whole the picture which we see is one of appearances,
+culminations, and disappearances of successive races of living things.
+There was a time when Trilobites, crustaceans whose nearest living
+representatives are the King-Crabs, first became features of the fauna
+of the earth. Then they increased to such an extent as to become the
+most prominent feature. Then they declined in importance, disappeared,
+and for uncounted ages have existed only as fossils. Thus we conclude
+that the creation of species was a progressive affair, just as the
+creation of individuals is a successive affair, for every living thing,
+coming as it does into existence by the power of the Creator, is His
+creation and in a very real sense a special creation. Now we know very
+well how living things come into existence to-day; can we form any idea
+as to how they originated in the beginning? Milton, in his crude
+description in _Paradise Lost_, pictured living things as gradually
+rising out of and extricating themselves from the soil.
+
+    "The grassy clods now calved, now half appeared
+    The tawny lion, pawing to get free
+    His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
+    And rampant shakes his brindled mane; the ounce,
+    The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole
+    Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw
+    In hillocks: the swift stag from underground
+    Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould
+    Behemoth, biggest born of earth, up heaved
+    His vastness."
+
+In this description Milton probably represented the ideas of his day--a
+day penetrated with literal interpretation of the Scripture, though it
+is well to recall to our minds the fact that not one word or idea of the
+above is contained in the Bible. The only suggestion is that the body of
+Adam was fashioned from the "slime of the earth," the precise meaning of
+which phrase has never been defined by the Church.
+
+Again, we have to say that the Miltonic scheme is not impossible, any
+more than any other scheme is impossible, but we may further say that it
+is more than improbable, and with every reverence we may add that to us
+it does not seem to be specially consonant with the greatness and wisdom
+of God. There remains the derivative form of creation, compendiously
+styled evolution. That this also is a possible method of creation no one
+will deny, and it has been discussed as such by many of the greatest
+thinkers in the history of the Church. We can consider it, therefore,
+from the point of fact or of knowledge as we now possess it, and we can
+do so without imagining that, in so doing, we are contemplating a method
+which is anything else but the carrying out of a creative plan, existing
+perfect and complete and from all eternity in the mind of the Being
+Whose conception it was and by whose _fiat_ it came to pass. Moreover,
+each form produced is a special creation, since it was specially
+designed to be as it is and to appear when it did, just as the
+clockmaker intends his clock to strike twelve at noon, though he can
+hardly be said to make it strike at that moment. Hence to place special
+creation in antagonism to evolution is really to use an ambiguous
+phraseology. No doubt it is not easy to find the proper phraseology.
+Some have employed the terms "immediate" and "mediate," to which also a
+certain amount of ambiguity is attached. Perhaps "direct" and
+"derivative" might convey more accurate ideas; but whatever terminology
+we adopt, we are still safe in saying that whether God makes things or
+makes them make themselves He is creating them and specially creating
+them.
+
+This is not the place to enter into any elaborate discussion as to the
+truth of the theory of evolution. Few will be found to deny the
+statement that it is a theory which _does_ explain Nature as we see it
+and as we learn its history in the past, but that does not necessarily
+prove that it is true. St. Thomas Aquinas, dealing with the movements of
+the planets, makes a very important statement when he tells us, in so
+many words, that, though the hypothesis with which he is dealing would
+explain the appearances which he was seeking to explain, that does not
+prove that it is the true explanation, since the real answer to the
+riddle may be one then unknown to him. There are, however, one or two
+points it may be useful to consider before we leave the question.
+
+That evolution may occur within a class seems to be quite certain. The
+case of the Porto Santo rabbits, one of many cited by Darwin or brought
+to knowledge since his time, will make clear what is meant. Porto Santo
+is a small island, not far from Madeira, on which a Portuguese
+navigator, named Zarco, let loose, somewhere about the year 1420, a doe
+and a recently born litter of rabbits, which we may feel quite sure
+belonged to one of those domestic breeds which have all been derived
+from the wild rabbit of Europe known to zoologists as _Lepus Cuniculus_.
+The island was a favourable spot for the rabbits, for there do not
+appear to have been any carnivorous beasts or birds to harry them, nor
+were there other land mammals competing with them for food; and, as a
+result, we are told that they had so far increased and multiplied in
+forty years as to be described as "innumerable." In four and a half
+centuries these rabbits had become so different from any European
+rabbits that Haeckel described them as a species apart, and named it
+_Lepus Huxlei_. This rabbit is much smaller than the European form,
+being described as more like a large rat than a rabbit. Its colour is
+very different from its European relatives; it has curious nocturnal
+habits; it is exceedingly wild and untamable. Most remarkable of all,
+and most conclusive as to specific difference, Mr. Bartlett, the highly
+skilled head keeper of the London Zoological Gardens, utterly failed to
+induce the two males which were brought over to those gardens to
+associate with or to breed with the females of various other breeds of
+rabbits which were repeatedly placed with them. If the history of these
+Porto Santo rabbits had been unknown to us, instead of being a matter as
+to which there can be no doubt, every naturalist would at once have
+accepted them as a separate species. We need not hesitate, it appears,
+to do so and to admit that it is a new species which has been produced
+within historic times and under conditions with which we are fully
+acquainted. It may, however, be argued, and quite fairly argued, that
+such a process of evolution, though definitely proved, is a very
+different thing from such an evolution as would permit of a common
+ancestry for animals so far apart, for example, as a whale and a rabbit,
+or perhaps even nearer in relationship, as between a lion and a seal. To
+discuss this further would require a dissertation on the highly involved
+question of species and varieties, and that is not now to be attempted.
+What, however, may be said is that the difficulties presented by what is
+called phylogeny--that is, the relationships of different classes to one
+another--are so great as to have led more than one man of science to
+proclaim his belief that evolution has been poly--and not
+mono--phyletic. Such is the view which has been enunciated by Father
+Wasmann, S.J., whose authority on a point of this kind is paramount. It
+has also been upheld by Professor Bateson, a man widely separated from
+the Jesuit in all but attachment to science. Professor Bateson summed up
+his belief in the text which he placed on the title-page of his first
+great work on _Variation_: the text which proclaims that there is a
+flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes.
+
+Darwin remained to the end of his life undecided between the two views,
+for he allowed his original statement as to life having been breathed
+into one or more forms by the Creator, to pass from edition to edition
+of the _Origin of Species_. If the polyphyletic theory be adopted, it
+must be said that the position of the materialist is made far more
+difficult than it is at present. Let us see what it means. On the
+materialistic hypothesis, and the same may be said of the pantheistic or
+any other hypothesis not theistic in nature, a certain cell came by
+chance to acquire the attributes of life. From this descended plants and
+animals of all kinds in divergent series till the edifice was crowned by
+man. I have elsewhere endeavoured to point out all that is involved in
+this assumption, which, it must be confessed, is a very large mouthful
+to swallow.
+
+Let us now consider what the polyphyletic hypothesis involves. According
+to this view one cell accidentally developed the attributes of vegetable
+life; a further accident leads another cell to initiate the line of
+invertebrates; another that of fishes, let us say; another of mammals:
+the number varying according to the views of the theorist on phylogeny.
+Let us not forget that the cell or cells which accidentally acquired the
+attributes of life, had accidentally to shape themselves from dead
+materials into something of a character wholly unknown in the inorganic
+world. If one seriously considers the matter it is--so it seems to
+me--utterly impossible to subscribe to the accidental theory of which
+the immanent god--the blind god of Bergson--is a mere variant. One must
+agree with the late Lord Kelvin that "science positively affirms
+creative power ... which (she) compels us to accept as an article of
+belief." But what are we to say with regard to the series of repeated
+accidents which the polyphyletic hypothesis would seem to demand? Is it
+really possible that any man could bring himself to place credence in
+such a marvellous series of occurrences? Monophyletic or polyphyletic
+evolution, whichever, if either, it may have been, presents no
+difficulty on the creation hypothesis.
+
+The Divine plan might have embraced either method. It is not merely
+revelation but ordinary reason which shows us that the wonderful things
+which we know, not to speak of the far more wonderful things at which we
+can only guess, cannot possibly be explained on any other hypothesis
+than that of a Free First Cause--a Creator.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 35: _The Theory of Evolution._ By William Berryman Scott.
+  New York: The Macmillan Co.]
+
+
+
+
+VIII. CATHOLIC WRITERS AND SPONTANEOUS GENERATION
+
+
+The names of great Catholic men of science, laymen like Pasteur and
+Müller, or ecclesiastics like Stensen and Mendel, are familiar to all
+educated persons. But even educated persons, or at least a great
+majority of them, are quite ignorant of the goodly band of workers in
+science who were devout children of the Church. Nothing perhaps more
+fully exemplifies this than the history of the controversy respecting
+the subject whose name is set down as the title of this paper. For
+centuries a controversy raged at intervals around the question of
+spontaneous generation. Did living things originate, not merely in the
+past but every day, from non-living matter? When we consider such things
+as the once mysterious appearance of maggots in meat it is not wonderful
+that in the days before the microscope the answer was in the
+affirmative.
+
+To-day the question may be considered almost closed. True, the negative
+proposition cannot be proved, hence it is impossible to say that
+spontaneous generation does not take place. However, the scientific
+world is at one in the belief that so far all attempts to prove it have
+failed utterly.
+
+St. Thomas Aquinas had a celebrated and sometimes misunderstood
+controversy with Avicenna, a very famous Arabian philosopher. It was a
+philosophical, but not strictly scientific, controversy, for both
+persons accepted or assumed the existence of spontaneous generation.
+Avicenna claimed that it took place by the powers of Nature alone,
+whilst St. Thomas adopted the attitude which we should adopt to-day,
+were spontaneous generation shown to be a fact, namely, that if Nature
+possessed this power, it was because the Creator had willed it so.
+
+We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668, when
+Francesco Redi (1626-1697) published his book on the generation of
+insects and showed that meat protected from flies by wire gauze or
+parchment did not develop maggots, whilst meat left unprotected did.
+From this and from other experiments he was led to formulate the theory
+that in all cases of apparent production of life from dead matter the
+real explanation was that living germs from outside had been introduced
+into it. For a long time this view held the field. Redi was, as his name
+indicates, an Italian, an inhabitant of Aretino, a poet as well as a
+physician and scientific worker. He was physician to two of the Grand
+Dukes of Tuscany and an academician of the celebrated _Accademia della
+Crusca_. Those works which I have been able to consult on the subject
+say nothing about his religion, but there can scarcely be any doubt
+that he was a Catholic. At any rate there is no doubt whatever as to the
+other persons now to be mentioned in connection with the controversy,
+which again became active about a century after Redi had published his
+book. The antagonists on this occasion were both of them Catholic
+priests, and both of them deserve some brief notice.
+
+John Turberville Needham (1713-1781) was born in London and belonged on
+both sides to old Catholic families. He was educated at Douay and
+ordained priest at Cambray in 1738. After teaching in that place for
+some time he journeyed to England and became head-master of the once
+celebrated school for Catholic boys at Twyford, near Winchester. From
+there he went for a short time to Lisbon as professor of philosophy in
+the English College. Subsequently he travelled with various Peers making
+"the grand tour." After that he retired to Paris, where he was elected a
+member of the _Académie des Sciences_. He was the first director of the
+Imperial Academy in Brussels; a canon, first of Dendermonde and
+afterward of Soignies. He died in Brussels and was buried in the Abbey
+of Condenberg. Needham was a man of really great scientific attainments,
+and perhaps nothing proves the estimation in which he was held more than
+the fact that in 1746 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,
+being the first Catholic priest to become a member of that distinguished
+body. When one remembers the attitude at that time, and much later, of
+Englishmen towards Catholics it is clear that Needham's claims to
+distinction must have been more than ordinarily great. His clear, firm
+signature is still to be seen in the charter-book of the society, and it
+is interesting to note that he signs his name "Turberville Needham."
+Needham did not confine his attention to science, for he was an ardent
+antiquary, and in 1761 was elected a Fellow of that other ancient and
+exclusive body, the Society of Antiquaries of London. In this connection
+it may be mentioned that Needham published, in 1761, a book which caused
+a great sensation, for he endeavoured to show that he could translate an
+Egyptian inscription by means of Chinese characters; in other words,
+that the forms of writing were germane to one another. He was shown to
+be quite wrong by some of the learned Jesuits of the day, who, with the
+assistance of Chinese men of letters, proved that the resemblances to
+which Needham had called attention were merely superficial.
+
+But our interest now is in his controversy with Spallanzani. Lazaro
+Spallanzani (1729-1799) was born at Scandiano in Modena and educated at
+the Jesuit College at Reggio di Modena. There was some question as to
+his entering the Society; he did not do so, however, but repaired to the
+University of Bologna, where his kinswoman, Laura Bassi, was then
+professor of physics. He became a priest, but devoted his life to
+teaching and experimenting. He must have been something of what we in
+Ireland used to call a "polymath," for he professed at one time or
+another, in various universities, logic, metaphysics, Greek, and
+finally natural history. He first explained the physics of what children
+call "ducks and drakes" made by flat pebbles on water; laid the
+foundations of meteorology and vulcanology, and is perhaps best of all
+known in connection with what is termed "regeneration" in the earthworm
+and above all in the salamander. His experiments still hold the field in
+a region of study which has vastly extended itself in recent years,
+becoming of prime importance in the vitalistic controversy.
+
+In the dispute, however, with which we are concerned Needham and
+Spallanzani defended opposite positions. The former, as the result of
+his observations, asserted that, in spite of the boiling and sealing up
+of organic fluids, life did appear in them. His opponent claimed that
+Needham's experiments had not been sufficiently precise. The latter had
+enclosed his fluids in bottles fitted with ordinary corks, covered with
+mastic varnish, whilst Spallanzani, employing flasks with long necks
+which he could and did seal by heat when the contents were boiling,
+showed that in that case no life was produced. He declared, and
+correctly too, as we now know, that Needham's methods did permit of the
+introduction of something from without. The controversy went to sleep
+again until the discovery of oxygen by Priestley in 1774. When it had
+been shown that oxygen was essential to the existence of all forms of
+life, the question arose as to whether the boiling of the organic fluids
+in the earlier experiments had not expelled all the oxygen and thus
+prevented the existence and development of any life.
+
+In the further experiments which this query gave rise to, we meet with
+another illustrious Catholic name, that of Theodor Schwann, better known
+as the originator of that fundamental piece of scientific knowledge, the
+cell-theory. Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) was born at Neuss and educated
+by the Jesuits, first at Cologne, afterward at Bonn. After studying at
+the Universities of Würzburg and Berlin he became professor in the
+Catholic University of Louvain, where his name was one of the principal
+glories of this now wrecked seat of learning. Thence he went as
+professor to Liége, where he died. He was, says his biography in the
+_Encyclopćdia Britannica_, "of a peculiarly gentle and amiable character
+and remained a devout Catholic throughout his life." Schwann's
+experiments tended to show that the introduction of air--of course
+containing oxygen--did not lead to the production of life, if the air
+had first been thoroughly sterilised. It was thought that this question
+had been finally answered, when it was reopened by Pouchet, in 1859. He
+was a Frenchman, the director of the Natural History Museum of Rouen,
+but as to his religious views I have no information. It is quite
+probable, however, that he was a Catholic. Pouchet and all on his side
+were finally--so far as there can be finality in such a matter--disposed
+of by Pasteur, of whose distinction as a man of science and devoutness
+as a Catholic nothing need be said.
+
+It is quite unnecessary to devote any consideration here to the
+character of Pasteur's experiments, for they have become a matter of
+common knowledge to all educated persons. Let it suffice to say that
+they were on the lines first laid down by Redi and greatly elaborated by
+Spallanzani, namely the exclusion from the fluids or other substances
+under examination of all possible contamination by minute organisms in
+the air. Spallanzani knew nothing of these organisms; they were not
+discovered until many years after his death. But he surmised that there
+was something which brought corruption into the fluids; he excluded that
+something, with the result that the fluids remained untainted. From our
+point of view, however, there are several things to be learnt. In the
+first place quite a number of ignorant persons have thought that the
+discovery of spontaneous generation would upset religious dogmata. That
+of course is quite absurd. From what has been said above it will be seen
+that St. Thomas Aquinas--in common with all the men of learning of his
+day--fully believed in it, as did Needham, another ecclesiastic as to
+whose orthodoxy there is no doubt. Further, the entire controversy is a
+complete confutation of the false allegation that between Catholicism
+and science there is a great gulf set. There have been few longer and
+more remarkable controversies in the history of science, and scarce any
+other--if indeed any other--which has such important bearings upon
+health and industry than that which relates to bio- or abio-genesis. It
+is significant to find that the names of so many of the protagonists in
+this controversy were those of men who were also convinced adherents of
+the Catholic Church.
+
+
+
+
+IX. A THEORY OF LIFE[36]
+
+
+Of the making of books on the question of Vitalism there would seem to
+be no end; and, following upon quite a number of others comes this
+handsome, well-illustrated, intensely interesting book, by one whose
+writings are always worth study. It purports to deal with the Origin and
+Evolution of Life; but, as to the first, it leaves us in no way advanced
+towards any real explanation of that problem on materialistic lines. As
+to the second, though there is a vast amount of valuable information,
+often illuminating and suggestive, again we confess that we fail to
+discover any real philosophy of that process of evolution which the
+author postulates. These propositions we must now proceed to justify. We
+can consider them from the most rigidly scientific standpoint, since, if
+every word or almost every word in the book were proved truth, it would
+not make the slightest difference to Catholic Philosophy, nor, indeed,
+to Theistic teachings, since in the imperishable words of Paley: "There
+may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind
+another, between what we observe of nature and the Deity; but there
+must be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what
+we see; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an intelligent
+designing Author."
+
+The scientific writer has to remember that whilst he may explain many
+things, his work is a torso unless and until he has either accepted the
+Creator as the first Cause, which he is too often disinclined to do, or
+has supplied an equally satisfactory explanation, which he is
+permanently unable to do. On the other hand, at least some defenders of
+Theism in the past might well have borne in mind that, whilst we are
+assured of the fact of Creation, we know absolutely nothing of its
+mechanism save that it came about by the command of God. There is
+nothing in which clear thinking and clear writing are more necessary
+than in discussions of this kind; and too many of them are vitiated by
+an obvious lack of philosophical training on the part of the
+participants. Even in this carefully written book there are instances of
+this kind of thing to which we must allude before considering its main
+arguments.
+
+"We know, for example, that there has existed a more or less complete
+chain of beings from monad to man, that the one-toed horse had a
+four-toed ancestor, that man has descended from an unknown ape-like form
+somewhere in the Tertiary." "We _know_"--that is exactly the opposite of
+the truth. We _know_ a thing when it is susceptible of proof according
+to the rigid rules of formal logic; when, to doubt it, would be to give
+rise to a suspicion as to our sanity; then we _know_ a thing, but not
+until then. Now, as to the sentence quoted, we may allow the first part
+to pass unchallenged with some possible demur at the use of the word
+"chain." The second so-called piece of knowledge was doubted by no less
+an authority than the late Adam Sedgwick. The third assertion plainly
+and distinctly is not the case; for Science _knows_ nothing whatsoever
+about the origin of man's body. In 1901 Branco, a distinguished
+palćontologist, with no Theistic leanings as far as we know, told the
+world that man appears on our planet as "a genuine _homo novus_," and
+that palćontology "knows no ancestors of man." Nor has any discovery
+since that date necessitated the modification of that opinion. What the
+writer means by saying "_We_ know" is "_I_ am convinced"; but, with the
+deepest respect for his undoubted position, the two things are not quite
+identical. "Biology, like theology, has its dogmas. Leaders have their
+disciples and blind followers." Wise words! They are those of the author
+with whom we are dealing. To say "we know" when really we only surmise
+is a misuse of language, just as it is also a misuse to ask the question
+"Does nature make a departure from its previously ordered procedure and
+substitute chance for law?" since the ordinary reader is all too apt to
+forget that "Nature" is a mere abstraction, and that to speak of Nature
+doing such or such a thing helps us in no way along the road towards an
+explanation of things.
+
+Or again: "So far as the _creative_ power of energy is concerned, we are
+on sure ground." The author has a careful note on the word creation (p.
+5), "the production of something new out of nothing," under which
+definition it is abundantly clear that energy, whilst it may be
+_productive_, cannot be _creative_. In fact, nothing can be _creative_
+in any definite and rigid sense, save a _Creator_ Who existed from all
+eternity and from Whom all things arose. One more instance of loose
+argumentation, and we can turn to the main purport of the book. It is a
+link in the author's "chain" which cannot be passed without examination.
+Everybody is familiar with the method of proof by elimination. We set
+down every possible explanation of a certain occurrence; we rule out one
+after the other until but one is left. If we really have set down all
+the possible explanations, and if we are quite clear as to the fact that
+all those which have been excluded are legitimately put out of court,
+then the one remaining explanation must be the true one. It is a method
+of proof which has frequently been applied to the vitalistic problem,
+and with the greatest effect, as it is admitted by some of those who
+would greatly like to find a materialistic explanation for that problem
+(cf. _The Philosophy of Biology_, Johnstone, p. 319).
+
+Let us see how our author employs it. What, he asks, is "the internal
+moving principle" in living substance? And he replies: "We may first
+exclude the possibility that it acts either through supernatural or
+teleological interposition through an externally creative power." Very
+well! Philosophers tell us that we can assume any position we choose for
+the purposes of our argument, but that ultimately we must prove that
+assumption or admit ourselves beaten. We look anxiously for the proof of
+the assumption made by our author, but absolutely no attempt is made to
+give one. We must be pardoned, therefore, if we hesitate to accept such
+an important statement on his mere _ipse dixit_. We pass on to the next
+elimination: "Although its visible results are in a high degree
+purposeful, we may also exclude as unscientific the vitalistic theory of
+an _entelechy_[37] or any other form of internal perfecting agency
+distinct from known or unknown physio-chemical energies." Why
+"unscientific"? Numbers of high authorities have not thought it so; and
+in quite recent years such eminent writers as Driesch and McDougal have
+written erudite works to prove this "unscientific" hypothesis. Is there
+any proof brought forward for _this_ assertion and its corresponding
+elimination?
+
+Let us continue the quotation: "Since certain forms of adaptation which
+were formerly mysterious can now be explained without the assumption of
+an entelechy we are encouraged to hope that all forms may be thus
+explained." The author does not tell us what the mysterious adaptations
+are, nor does he offer us the explanations which, in his opinion,
+explain them. We cannot, therefore, criticise his views, and can only
+remind his readers that, because an explanation plausibly explains an
+occurrence, it is by no means always therefore certain to be the true
+explanation; it may, indeed, be wholly false.
+
+Further, those who have been wandering for the past half-century in the
+fields of science have become a little wearied of "explanations,"
+vaunted, for periods of five or ten years, as the key to open all locks,
+and then cast into the furnace. What the author would seem to mean by
+his statement is this: "I am convinced myself that we can do without a
+'supernatural' explanation, and I regard as 'unscientific' any
+explanation which cannot be put to the test of chemistry and physics;
+hence I must shut the door on anything like an _entelechy_, and, that
+being so, it behoves me to look for some other explanation." Of course,
+we are putting these words into the mouth of our author; if we were
+dealing with the matter ourselves we should be inclined to argue that,
+by the eliminatory method, chemistry and physics do prove, or do help to
+prove, the existence of an entelechy.
+
+With these expostulations we may turn to the writer's pronouncements on
+the vitalistic question which seem to us to be worthy of serious
+consideration. Everybody knows that there are two very diverse opinions
+on this topic; the one that there is, the other that there is not
+something more--a _plus_--in living than there is in not-living
+objects. In other words, that there is a difference of kind, and not
+merely of degree, between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the schools of
+thought called vitalistic and mechanistic. To most persons it has up to
+now seemed impossible that there could be a third school; we appeared to
+be confronted with what the logicians call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn
+seems to us to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear on this
+matter. If we are to "reject the vitalistic hypotheses of the ancient
+Greeks, and the modern vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others,"
+and if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he thinks we must, the
+cosmos as one of "limitless and _ordered_ energy"--we have emphasised
+the word "_ordered_" for reasons which will shortly appear--we must
+clearly look out for some middle way. "_Ordered_," a purely mechanistic
+and materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. "_Ordered_" conditions
+are determined by what we agree to call "Laws"; and these, as all must
+admit, entail a Lawgiver.
+
+The alternative is Blind Chance; and the author, after considering the
+question, agrees, as again most reasonable persons will agree, that
+Blind Chance is no explanation of things as they are. He quotes a modern
+chemist who, discussing the probability of the environmental fitness of
+the earth for life being a mere chance process, remarks: "There is, in
+truth, not one chance in countless millions of millions that the many
+unique properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and especially of
+their stable compounds, water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make up
+the atmosphere of a new planet, should simultaneously occur in the three
+elements otherwise than through the operation of a natural law which
+somehow connects them together. There is no greater probability that
+these unique properties should be without due cause uniquely favourable
+to the organic mechanism" (J. J. Henderson, 1913).
+
+If neither of the classic points of view is tenable, what then is the
+explanation, if, indeed, any be possible? The author casts one brief
+glance down that blind-alley marked "Element Way." Does some known
+element or some unknown element, to which the name _Bion_ might be
+given, exist and form the source of the energy in living things? Radium
+has only been known to us for a few years; can we say that there is no
+such thing as Bion? Of course we cannot; but this we can say, that, if
+there is such an element and if it is really responsible for all the
+protean manifestations of life, wonderful as radium and its doings are,
+they must sink into nothingness beside those of this new and unsuspected
+entity. The author evidently does not think that this path is a
+profitable one to pursue, and we agree with him; so he turns his
+attention to the question of energy. Energy is the capacity for doing
+work. It is often, of course, latent, as, for example, in a cordite
+cartridge, which is a peaceful, harmless thing until the energy stored
+up in it is realised with the accompanying explosion and work is done.
+It is the same with a bent spring; a clock-weight when the clock is not
+going, and so on.
+
+We need not develop this matter further; but one point must be alluded
+to, namely, the gradual exhaustion of the available energy in the
+changes from one manifestation to another. In all physical processes
+heat is evolved, which heat is distributed by conduction and radiation
+and tends to become universally diffused throughout space. When complete
+uniformity has been attained, all physical phenomena will come to an
+end; in other words, our solar system must come to an end, and it must
+have had a beginning. It is a well-known argument. Is there anything to
+rewind the clock which is running down before our very eyes? It was once
+urged that stellar collisions, and such-like things, might permit us to
+postulate a cyclical arrangement (and thus rearrangement) of universal
+phenomena; but that hypothesis does not seem to find any supporters
+to-day.
+
+In his interesting book, already mentioned, Dr. Johnstone called
+attention to the power possessed by living matter of reversing the
+process; but no reversal of this kind and extent can make up for the
+constant degradation of energy which is taking place all round us. We
+mention this because it shows that "energy" cannot, in any case, afford
+an eternal solution, but only a temporal and therefore a limited one. No
+one doubts that there is energy in the living thing, nor that there are
+what the author calls "complexes of energies." No one, again, will
+quarrel with the statement that energy is first seen in the sun, in the
+earth, in the air, and in the water; that "with life something new
+appears in the universe, namely, a union of the internal and external
+adjustment of energy which we appropriately call an _Organism_." That
+"the germ is an energy complex" is no doubt an unproved hypothesis, as
+he admits, but is quite likely. With all these assertions we may agree,
+though we cannot with that which follows, namely, that energy is
+creative, for that such is impossible in any true sense of that word we
+have already tried to show.
+
+We have now to ask ourselves in what way this energy conception of life
+differs from, or goes beyond, the two theories of life--mechanistic and
+vitalistic, which have hitherto been supposed to have exhausted the
+possibilities of explanation. In order to do this we must analyse the
+author's idea of energy and its relationship to biological processes a
+little more closely. He begins his study of life and its evolution by
+considering how nutrition and the derivation of energy can have taken
+place before chlorophyl had come into existence; and he very pertinently
+points to the _prototrophic_ bacteria as probably representing "the
+survival of a primordial stage of life chemistry." Thus a "primitive
+feeder," the bacterium _Nitrosomonas_, "for combustion ... takes in
+oxygen directly through the intermediate action of iron, phosphorus or
+manganese, each of the single cells being a powerful little chemical
+laboratory which contains oxidising catalysers, the activity of which
+is accelerated by the presence of iron and manganese. Still, in the
+primordial stage, _Nitrosomonas_ lives on ammonium sulphate, taking its
+energy (food) from the nitrogen of ammonium and forming nitrates. Living
+symbiotically with it is _Nitrobacter_, which takes its energy (food)
+from the nitrates formed by _Nitrosomonas_, oxidising them into
+nitrates. Thus these two species illustrate in its simplest form our law
+of the _interaction of an organism_ (_Nitrobacter_) _with its life
+environment_ (_Nitrosomonas_)" (p. 82, author's italics).
+
+Once one has got to this stage, it is _ex hypothesi_ easy to ascend
+through the vegetable and animal worlds and to formulate the various
+laws which appear to have shaped the evolution of life and of species.
+We are then "within the system," but to arrive at anything worthy of the
+name of an explanation we have first to _get_ within the system. Even
+then there remains over the task of explaining how the system comes to
+be there to get inside of. The writer talks of his example as "the
+simplest form." Yet, in his own words, it is a "_powerful little
+chemical laboratory_," well stocked with catalysers and other potent
+means for carrying on its work. "Simple"! Well, no doubt comparatively
+simple, but in reality complex almost beyond the power of words to
+describe. "A chemical laboratory"! Yes; and one which performs most
+delicate operations. "Well stocked with catalysers"! And what are they?
+Most wonderful things which induce change without themselves undergoing
+any; discoveries of quite recent date as to which we still know but
+little. "Simple" seems hardly the word to apply, save in strict relation
+to other and higher forms. How did this laboratory come into existence?
+In what way did it learn to do its work? How did catalysers come to be?
+Was all this mere chance-medley? It is Paley's example of the watch
+found on the heath once more. Does it help us in any way to talk about
+"energy" and "complexes" of energy and "the creative force of energy"?
+To us it does not seem to advance matters one little bit. Either these
+operations of _Nitrosomonas_ are determined or they are not; either they
+are the result of a law or they are the result of blind chance; in
+either case the energy which is involved must act according to the
+conditions ordered or not ordered. In other words: if it is the dominant
+factor, as the writer would lead us to suppose; if there is "direction,"
+then the action of energy must be directive; and, if it is directive, in
+what possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old _entelechy_
+or _vital principle_, or whatever else one may choose to call it? On the
+other hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything
+happens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy
+save us from complete surrender to that theory?
+
+From all this it would appear that whilst energy is constantly being
+exhibited (and in all sorts of manifestations) by the living object,
+that does not explain anything, since it does not explain how energy
+originally came to be, nor how it came to work under the laws which
+seem to govern it. It is one more added to the long list of
+"explanations," which hopelessly break down because those who have put
+them forward have never apparently applied themselves to the task of
+grasping the important difference between a final and an intermediate
+cause.
+
+Let us sum up this part of our author's teaching in the light of this
+distinction. The organism is a material complex, and all sorts of
+actions and reactions take place in it. They are subject to the laws of
+physics, and notably to those relating to energy and its
+transformations. It has internal energies which must be adjusted to one
+another and not less to those around it; that is to say, it must be more
+or less in harmony with its environment. There are the problems of
+germ-plasm, and its transmission; the effect on it, if any, of the body,
+and the reaction of the body to its environment. There are also the
+catalysers of which we have spoken, with many problems associated with
+them, and throwing a possible and unexpected light on the vexed question
+of Vitalism and the Conservation of Energy. There are all these things,
+manifestations of energy; there is the watch, and it is going. But, as
+we remarked elsewhere, the fact that we have learned that the resiliency
+of the spring in the watch makes it "go" does not exhaust the
+explanation of the watch any more than the fact that we know something
+of the actions and reactions of energy in the organism exhausts its
+explanation. The watch is "going"; so is the organism. Each of them, in
+a sense, is a "wonderful little laboratory" in which manifestations of
+energy are constantly taking place. The watchmaker constructed the watch
+for that purpose; who or what constructed the organism? Darwin and the
+Darwinians would have said--Natural Selection. In fact, Darwin rather
+lamented that "the old argument from design in nature, as given by
+Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails now that
+the law of Natural Selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue
+that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have
+been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man.
+There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings,
+and in the action of Natural Selection, than in the course which the
+wind blows." There again Darwin fell into a mistake, because he confused
+an intermediate with a final cause. Even if Natural Selection were all
+that the most ultra-Darwinian could claim it to be, it could not, as
+Driesch and others have shown, exhaust the explanation of the organism.
+
+As a matter of fact the world of science is very far from thinking of
+Natural Selection as anything more than a factor, perhaps even a minor
+factor, in evolution. The author of the work with which we are dealing
+tells us that "Darwin's law of selection as a natural explanation of the
+origin of _all_ fitness in form and function has lost its prestige at
+the present time, and all of Darwinism which now meets with universal
+acceptance is the _law of the survival of the fittest_, a limited
+application of Darwin's great idea as expressed by Herbert Spencer." But
+let that pass. In another place the author makes it clear that the
+explanations of to-day, including his own, do _not_ exhaust the subject,
+for he says "it is incumbent on us to discover the _cause_ of the
+orderly origin of every character. The nature of such a law we cannot
+even dream of at present, for the causes of the majority of vertebrate
+adaptations remain wholly unknown." In any case we must account for
+Natural Selection; for if it is a Law--as some doubt--it must have had a
+Lawgiver. The watch must have been an Idea in some one's mind before it
+became an accomplished fact, and Natural Selection or any other "Law of
+Nature" must--unless all reason is nonsense and all nonsense
+reason--also have been an Idea before it became a factor. Whose Idea?
+Our author does not help us to answer this question. On the contrary--he
+tries to set an unclimbable fence in the way of any answer by telling
+us, though without any convincing argument to support his statement,
+that we may "exclude the possibility that it" [the internal moving
+principle] "acts either through supernatural or teleological
+interposition through an externally creative power." But though he
+refuses to allow us to look in this direction for a solution of our
+difficulties, it must be confessed that he does not help us with any
+other answer satisfying the question of the origin and evolution of
+Life.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 36: _The Origin and Evolution of Life; or, the Theory
+  of Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy._ By F. H.
+  Osborn. (G. Bell & Sons.)]
+
+  [Footnote 37: By _entelechy_--an Aristotelian term
+  re-introduced by Driesch--is meant an agency other than one of
+  a purely chemico-physical character, which differentiates
+  living from not-living substance, and is responsible for the
+  phenomenon of life.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+INDEX OF NAMES
+
+
+Agassiz, 142
+
+Allen, Grant, 85
+
+Aquinas, St. Thomas, 60, 147, 153
+
+Austen, Miss, 32
+
+Avicenna, 153
+
+
+Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 116
+
+Bassi, Laura, 155
+
+Bateson, W., F.R.S., 4, 7, 11, 118, 150
+
+Bax, Belfort, 37
+
+Benson, Mgr., 84, 88, 94, 101
+
+Bergson, 151, 166
+
+Bernhardi, 20
+
+Borden, Sir Robert, 122
+
+Branco, 162
+
+Buffon, 100
+
+Butler, Samuel 44, 61
+
+
+Chesterton, G. K., 113
+
+Clodd, E., 86
+
+Conklyn, 23
+
+Cowper, 37
+
+Crichton-Browne, 20
+
+Cuvier, 142
+
+
+Darwin, 116, 131, 150, 173
+
+Devas, Mr. 27, 120
+
+Dewar, Prof. Sir J., F.R.S., 113
+
+Doyle, Sir A. C., 46, 51
+
+Driesch, 4, 7, 24, 69, 164, 166, 173
+
+
+Fallopius, 96, 144
+
+Fielding, 31
+
+
+Gosse, E., 39
+
+Gosse, Philip, 98
+
+Grant Allen, 85
+
+
+Healy, Father--Tale of, 40
+
+Henderson, J. J., 167
+
+Henslow, 24
+
+Hull, Fr. E., S.J., 103
+
+Huxley, 74, 98, 101, 117
+
+
+Johnson, Dr. 48, 161, 168
+
+Joly, Prof., F.R.S., 110
+
+
+Kelvin, Lord, 151
+
+
+Lankester, 15
+
+Lauder, Harry, 2
+
+Leduc, 2, 62
+
+Lodge, Sir O., 3, 85
+
+Loeb, J,. 58, 62
+
+Lucas, E. V., on the War, 47
+
+
+Mcdougal, 164
+
+Mahaffy, Sir John, 111
+
+Marett, 15, 16
+
+Masefield, 48
+
+Mendel, 75, 135
+
+Milton, 145
+
+Mivart, Prof., 96
+
+
+Needham, John Turberville, 154
+
+Newman, 33, 38
+
+Newton, The Rev. J., 38
+
+Nietzsche, 19
+
+
+Osborne, Prof., 160
+
+
+Paley, 160
+
+Pasteur, 157
+
+Perkin, Prof. W. H., 107
+
+Pouchet, 157
+
+Priestley, 156
+
+
+Redi, Francisco, 153
+
+Richardson, 31
+
+Rignano, 25, 62
+
+Ryder, Dr., 51
+
+
+Sabatier, 113
+
+Schwann, Theodor, 157
+
+Scott, Prof., 142
+
+Scott, The Rev. Thomas, 38
+
+Sedgwick, Adam, 162
+
+Spallanzani, Lazaro, 155
+
+Stensen, Nicolaus, 75, 97, 99
+
+
+Tilden, Sir William, 64
+
+Tyson, Edward, 77
+
+
+Wasmann, 26, 150
+
+Wells, H. G., 49
+
+Whiffen, 20
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL INDEX
+
+
+Adam, 146
+
+Adrenals, 63
+
+"After-Christians," 120
+
+Aggressive mimicry, 123
+
+Albino race, An, 128
+
+Amazonian Indians, 20
+
+"Anatomie of a Pygmie," 77
+
+Ancestral peculiarities, 133
+
+Aniline dyes, 107
+
+Arrangement, 8, 137
+
+
+Bacteria, Prototrophic, 169
+
+Badische Aniline Fabrik, 106, 109
+
+Bathybius, 98
+
+Bion, 167
+
+Blind Chance, 166
+
+Bondage of Knowledge, The, 84
+
+Botanic Garden, 131
+
+Breeding Committees, 119
+
+Breeding True, 126
+
+Bricks and Builders, 139
+
+"Bugbear of Hell," 21, 119
+
+
+Calvinism, 32
+
+Cartesian idea of the soul, 69
+
+Catalysts, 113, 170
+
+Celibacy, 120
+
+Cell-Theory, The, 157
+
+Chance-Medley, 134
+
+Chromatin, 130
+
+Colloids, 62
+
+"Continuity," 46
+
+Conversion, 34
+
+Cowardice, Alleged, of Catholic Scientists, 99
+
+Creation, 163;
+  a method of, 144
+
+"Criticisms on the Pentateuch," 45
+
+"Cutting up of Frogs," 115
+
+Cytolysis, 65
+
+
+"Dabney, Mr.," 47
+
+Defence of the Realm Act, 82
+
+Degradation of Energy, 168
+
+Derivative Creation, 146
+
+Discontinuity, 3
+
+"Ducks and Drakes," 156
+
+Duck's Egg, 125, 130
+
+Dye-stuffs, 107
+
+
+Elimination, Proof by, 163
+
+Energy, 16
+
+Energy, Degradation of, 169
+
+Entelechy, 164, 171
+
+Eskimo, 19
+
+"Esmond," 31
+
+"Essays and Reviews," 45
+
+Eugenics, 117
+
+Evangelicanism, 32, 33, 44
+
+Exhibitions, International, of 1851 and 1862, 10
+
+Extermination of the Less Fit, 122
+
+
+Families, Restricted, 118
+
+"Father and Son," 39
+
+"Force and Energy, a Theory of Dynamics," 85
+
+"Force of Truth, The," 38
+
+Formaldehyde, 2
+
+Fossils, Explanation of, 97
+
+Free First Cause, 144, 151
+
+Freethinkers and "tolerance, justice, and gentleness," 73
+
+
+Germination, 65
+
+Guide, the Church a, 92
+
+
+Hapsburg lip, The, 127
+
+Harmonious-Equipotential System, 69
+
+Heredity in the Law Courts, 29
+
+Hormones, 63
+
+Horse, Pedigree of the, 161
+
+
+Imprimatur, The, 77
+
+In-and-in breeding, 127
+
+Index Prohibitorius, 95
+
+Industrial Scientific Research, Department of, 114
+
+Inheritance:
+  Chemical theory, 134;
+  Mnemic theory, 5, 61, 133;
+  Particulate theories, 61, 132
+
+
+Jack, Jill, and Joan, 119
+
+Jungle, The law of, 122
+
+
+King-crabs, 145
+
+
+Lamp-shells, 145
+
+Law and Heredity, The, 129
+
+Law and Lawgiver, 9
+
+Law of Nature, 174
+
+Law's "Serious Call," 31
+
+Liberty, personal, 87
+
+"Life and Habit," 61
+
+Life, Origin of, 160
+
+"Little Dorrit," 112
+
+"Loss and Gain," 33
+
+
+Maggots in meat, 153
+
+Man's pedigree, 161
+
+"Marriage," 49
+
+Mauve, 107
+
+Mediate Creation, 147
+
+Memory, unconscious, 5
+
+Mendelism, 6
+
+Method of Creation, 144, 161
+
+Micromeristic theories, 5
+
+Mimicry, 123
+
+Mnemic Theory of Inheritance, The, 5, 61, 133
+
+Monastic Orders, 121
+
+Monophyletic evolution, 151
+
+"Multitude and Solitude," 48
+
+
+"Naturalism and Agnosticism," 57
+
+Natural Selection, 19, 122, 173
+
+"Nature does this," 136, 162
+
+Nature's insurgent son, 15
+
+"New Republic, The," 56
+
+"New Revelation, The," 46, 51
+
+Nitrobacter, 170
+
+Novels and Novelists, 30
+
+
+"Occam's" razor, 29
+
+Occultism, 28, 51
+
+Ordered energy, 166
+
+"Organism as a whole," 38
+
+Origin of Species, 150
+
+"Over Bemertons," 47
+
+Oxford Movement, 33
+
+
+"Pamela," 32
+
+Pangenesis, 61, 131
+
+Pantheism, 9
+
+"Paradise Lost," 145
+
+"Parson Adams," 31
+
+Particulate Theories of Inheritance, 61, 132
+
+Personal Liberty, 81
+
+"Philosophy of Biology, The," 163
+
+Phylogeny, 4, 149
+
+Plymouth Brethren, 99
+
+Political leaders of the day, 114
+
+Polyphyletic hypothesis, The, 150
+
+Porto Santo rabbits, 148
+
+Post-Christians, 27
+
+Prototrophic bacteria, 169
+
+Providentissimus Deus, 103
+
+Pugs and Greyhounds, 126
+
+Purposefulness: a strange confession as to, 59
+
+
+"Raymond," 51
+
+Resiliency, 172
+
+Restricted families, 118
+
+
+Sabbatarianism, 36
+
+Salaries of Scientific Teachers, 112
+
+Saurians, 145
+
+Science, Catholic Men of, 75-6
+
+Science, Neglect of, at Schools, 109
+
+Sin, Mythical Ideas of, 123
+
+Six-fingered race, A, 128
+
+Slavery in the State, 24
+
+"Slime of the Earth," 146
+
+"Social Vermin," 118
+
+"Some Revelations as to 'Raymond,'" 53
+
+Special Creation, 142
+
+Spermatozoon, 65
+
+Spiritualism and the War, 50
+
+Spontaneous Generation, 152
+
+Springs in the watch, The, 172
+
+"Stinks Men," 110
+
+Survival of the Fittest, 122
+
+Syngamy, 65
+
+Synthetic drugs, 107
+
+
+Telepathy, 2
+
+Teratomata, 65
+
+Theophobia, 26
+
+Thermos flask, The, 113
+
+"Throws back," 128
+
+Trilobites, 145
+
+Trinity College, Dublin, 110
+
+"Tyranny" of the Church, 91
+
+
+Uncle Remus and the rabbit's tail, 127
+
+Unconscious Memory, 5, 61
+
+Universities, Medićval, 75
+
+
+Vitalism and Anti-Vitalism, 68, 165
+
+
+"Way of All Flesh, The," 44
+
+"Wisdom, Book of," 123
+
+Wolff's Experiment, 69
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PRINTED BY
+HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
+LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have
+been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
+
+page 85
+
+    years in investigating. The man who sets out to make a
+    research, without first acertaining[ascertaining] what others
+    have done in that direction, proposes to
+
+page 121 (Footnote 32)
+
+    Conklyn, _Heredity and Environment in the Development of
+    Men_. Princetown[Princeton] University Press, 1915.
+
+page 136
+
+    mere personification and means either chance-medley or a
+    Creator, according to the old dilemna.[dilemma] There is a
+    very curious example of this inability
+
+page 153:
+
+    We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668,
+    when Franceso[Francesco] Redi (1626-1697) published his book
+    on the generation of insects
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Science and Morals and Other Essays, by 
+Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Science and Morals and Other Essays, by 
+Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Science and Morals and Other Essays
+
+Author: Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
+Release Date: February 25, 2008 [EBook #24684]
+
+Language: English
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE, MORALS, OTHER ESSAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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+
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+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>SCIENCE AND MORALS</h1>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>SCIENCE AND MORALS</h1>
+<h2>AND OTHER ESSAYS</h2>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>SIR BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE</h2>
+
+<p class="center">M.A., M.D., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., K.S.G.<br />
+<small>OF ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE, TORONTO, ONT.</small><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">LONDON<br />
+BURNS &amp; OATES, LTD<br />
+28 ORCHARD STREET, W<br />
+1919</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><b>TO</b></p>
+
+<p class="center"><b><span class="smcap">JOHN ROBERT and MARY O'CONNELL</span></b></p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>A TOKEN OF SINCERE FRIENDSHIP</b></p>
+
+<div class="blockindent"><p><span class="smcap">&nbsp;&nbsp;Listarkin</span><br />
+<i>September</i> 1919</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="blockindent"><p class="noindent"><span class="dropcap">T</span>HESE Essays have all in one form or another appeared elsewhere; and I
+have to thank the Editors of the <i>Dublin Review</i>, <i>Catholic World</i>,
+<i>America</i>, and <i>Studies</i> respectively for kind permission to reproduce
+them. Some of them appear as they were published, others have been
+almost rewritten.</p>
+
+<p class="citation">B. C. A. W.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+
+
+<th class="tda"></th>
+<th class="tdc" colspan="2">PAGE</th>
+</tr>
+
+
+
+   <tr>
+<td class="tda">I.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Science and Morals</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#I_SCIENCE_AND_MORALS">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"></td><td class="tdbb"><span class="smcap">§ 1. The Gospel of Science</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#I_SCIENCE_AND_MORALS">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"></td><td class="tdbb"><span class="smcap">§ 2. Science as a Rule of Life</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#SCIENCE_AS_A_RULE_OF_LIFE">14</a></td></tr>
+
+  <tr>
+<td class="tda">II.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Theophobia and Nemesis</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#II_THEOPHOBIA_AND_NEMESIS">26</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"></td><td class="tdbb"><span class="smcap">§ 1. Theophobia: its Cause</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#II_THEOPHOBIA_AND_NEMESIS">26</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"></td><td class="tdbb"><span class="smcap">§ 2. Theophobia: its Nemesis</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#THEOPHOBIA_ITS_NEMESIS">44</a></td></tr>
+
+ <tr>
+<td class="tda">III.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Within and Without the System</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#III_WITHIN_AND_WITHOUT_THE_SYSTEM">56</a></td></tr>
+
+  <tr>
+<td class="tda">IV.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Science in "Bondage"</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#IV_SCIENCE_IN_BONDAGE">74</a></td></tr>
+
+   <tr>
+<td class="tda">V.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Science and the War</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#V_SCIENCE_AND_THE_WAR">106</a></td></tr>
+
+  <tr>
+<td class="tda">VI.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Heredity and "Arrangement"</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#VI_HEREDITY_AND_ARRANGEMENT">125</a></td></tr>
+
+ <tr>
+<td class="tda">VII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">"Special Creation"</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#VII_SPECIAL_CREATION">142</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tda">VIII.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Catholic Writers and Spontaneous Generation</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#VIII_CATHOLIC_WRITERS_AND_SPONTANEOUS_GENERATION">152</a></td></tr>
+
+  <tr>
+<td class="tda">IX.</td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Theory of Life</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#IX_A_THEORY_OF_LIFE">160</a></td></tr>
+
+      <tr>
+<td class="tda"></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Index of Names</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#INDEX_OF_NAMES">175</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">General Index</span></td><td class="tdc"><a href="#GENERAL_INDEX">177</a></td></tr>
+
+
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="SCIENCE_AND_MORALS" id="SCIENCE_AND_MORALS"></a>SCIENCE AND MORALS</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="I_SCIENCE_AND_MORALS" id="I_SCIENCE_AND_MORALS"></a>SCIENCE AND MORALS</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="THE_GOSPEL_OF_SCIENCE" id="THE_GOSPEL_OF_SCIENCE"></a>
+&sect; 1. THE GOSPEL OF SCIENCE</h3>
+
+<p>In the days before the war the Annual Address delivered by the President
+of the British Association was wont to excite at least a mild interest
+in the breasts of the reading public. It was a kind of Encyclical from
+the reigning pontiff of science, and since that potentate changed every
+year there was some uncertainty as to his subject and its treatment, and
+there was this further piquant attraction, wanting in other and
+better-known Encyclicals, that the address of one year might not merely
+contradict but might even exhibit a lofty contempt for that or for those
+which had immediately preceded it.</p>
+
+<p>During the three years immediately preceding the war we had excellent
+examples of all these things. In the first of them we were treated to a
+somewhat belated utterance in opposition to Vitalism. Its arguments were
+mostly based upon what even to the tyro in chemistry seemed to be rather
+shaky foundations. Such indeed they proved to be, since the deductions
+drawn from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> the behaviour of colloids and from Leduc's pretty toys were
+promptly disclaimed by leading chemists in the course of the few days
+after the delivery of the address.</p>
+
+<p>Further, the President for the year 1914 in his address (Melbourne, p.
+18)<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> told us that the problem of the origin of life, which, let us
+remind ourselves, in the 1912 address was on the point of solution,
+"still stands outside the range of scientific investigation," and that
+when the spontaneous formation of formaldehyde is talked of as a first
+step in that direction he is reminded of nothing so much as of Harry
+Lauder, in the character of a schoolboy, "pulling his treasures from his
+pocket&mdash;'That's a wassher&mdash;for makkin motor-cars!'" Nineteen hundred and
+twelve pinned its faith on matter and nothing else; Nineteen hundred and
+thirteen assured us that "occurrences now regarded as occult can be
+examined and reduced to order by the methods of science carefully and
+persistently applied."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Further, the examination of those facts had
+convinced the deliverer of the address "that memory and affection are
+not limited to that association with matter by which alone they can
+manifest themselves here and now, and that personality persists beyond
+bodily death." Nineteen hundred and fourteen proclaimed telepathy a
+"harmless toy," which, with necromancy, has taken the place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> of
+"eschatology and the inculcation of a ferocious moral code." And yet it
+is on telepathy, if we are to believe the daily papers, that Sir Oliver
+Lodge largely relies for his proofs. Here, at any rate, is a pleasing
+diversity of opinion which fully bears out what was said at the
+beginning of this paper. It is, however, with the third address, or
+rather pair of addresses, that we are concerned; for the meeting of
+1914, not only was the first to be held at the Antipodes, but also the
+first to be honoured with two addresses&mdash;one in Melbourne, the other in
+Sydney.</p>
+
+<p>Their deliverer is a very distinguished and a very independent man of
+Science. It was he who insisted, at a time when the domination of a very
+rigid form of Darwinism was much stronger than it is to-day, that the
+picture of Nature as seen by us is a Discontinuous picture, though
+Discontinuity does not exist in the environment. And it was he who asked
+whether the Discontinuity might not be in the living thing itself, and
+prefixed to the monumental work<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> in which he discussed this question
+the significant text from the Bible: "All flesh is not the same flesh;
+but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another
+of fishes, and another of birds." Nearer to our own times, he was one of
+a small body of men of science who almost synchronously disinterred the
+forgotten works of Abbot Mendel, and proclaimed them to the world, as
+containing discoveries of the first value. He was thus always something
+of a "Herald of Revolt," and maintains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> that character in these
+addresses. "We go to Darwin for his incomparable collection of facts. We
+would fain emulate his scholarship, his width and his power of
+exposition, but to us he speaks no more with philosophical authority. We
+read his scheme of evolution as we would those of Lucretius or Lamarck,
+delighting in their simplicity and their courage" (M., p. 9).
+"Naturally, we turn aside from generalities. It is no time to discuss
+the origin of the Mollusca or of Dicotyledons, while we are not even
+sure how it came to pass that <i>Primula obconica</i> has in twenty-five
+years produced its abundant new forms almost under our eyes" (<i>ib.</i>,
+<i>ib.</i>). And so on. To take one other example: there is nothing which was
+more insisted upon by Darwinians than the fact that all the various
+races of domestic fowl known to us came from <i>Gallus bankiva</i>, the
+jungle-fowl of India; in fact I think I have seen that form enthroned
+amongst its supposed descendants in more than one museum. "So we are
+taught; but try to reconstruct the steps in their evolution and you
+realise your hopeless ignorance" (M., p. 11). If we cannot construct a
+"tree" for fowls, how absurd to adventure into the deeper recesses of
+Phylogeny. If all that Professor Bateson says is true, is not Driesch
+right when he speaks of "the phantasy christened Phylogeny"?<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>The addresses, however, were not solely concerned with throwing contempt
+upon views which were yesterday of great respectability, and which even
+to-day are as gospel to many. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> devoted themselves chiefly to the
+consideration of the question of heredity, viewed, as might be expected,
+from the Mendelian standpoint.</p>
+
+<p>Now, at this point it may be said that there are at least two things
+which we should like to know about heredity&mdash;the vehicle and the laws.
+It is clear that we might know something, perhaps even a good deal,
+about one of these without knowing anything about the other.</p>
+
+<p>Such in fact is the case; for we know, it may fairly be said, nothing
+about the vehicle. There are two very widely distinct opinions on this
+point. There is the mnemic theory, recently brought before us by the
+republication of Butler's most interesting and suggestive work with its
+translations of Hering's original paper and Von Hartmann's discourse and
+its very illuminating introduction by Professor Hartog.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>And there is the continuity theory which teaches that in some way or
+another the characteristics of the parents and other ancestors are
+physical parts of the germ. An attempt to explain this was made by
+Darwin in his theory of Pangenesis. Others have essayed what Yves Delage
+calls "micromeristic" interpretations. As to all of these it may be said
+that when they are reduced to figures the explanation becomes of so
+complex a character as utterly to break down. We shall see that
+Professor Bateson adopts a third very nebulous explanation. But as
+regards the laws of heredity there is something else to be said; for
+here we really do know something, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> that something we owe in large
+measure to the innumerable experiments which have been made on Mendelian
+lines since the re-discovery of the methods first adopted by the
+celebrated Abbot of Br&uuml;nn. It is no intention of the writer of this
+paper to describe the Mendelian theory,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> which is well known, at least
+to all biological readers, though one or two points in connection with
+it may yet have to be touched upon.</p>
+
+<p>The point of cardinal importance in connection with Mendelism is that it
+does reveal a law capable of being numerically stated, and apparently
+applicable to a large number of isolated factors in living things.
+Indeed it was this attention to isolated factors which was the first and
+essential part of Mendel's method. For example, others had been content
+to look at the pea as a whole. Mendel applied his analytic method to
+such things as the colour of the pea, the smooth or wrinkled character
+of the skin which covered it, its dwarfness or height, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the behaviour of these isolated factors seems to throw a light even
+upon the vehicle of heredity. We often talk of "blood" and "mixing of
+blood," as if blood had anything to do with the question, when really
+the Biblical expression "the seed of Abraham" is much more to the point.
+For it is in the seed that these factors must be, whether they be mnemic
+or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> physical. Professor Bateson (M., p. 5) thinks it obvious that they
+are transmitted by the spermatozoon and the ovum; but it seems to him
+"unlikely that they are in any simple or literal sense material
+particles." And he goes on to say, and this, I think, is one of his most
+important statements: "I suspect rather that their properties depend on
+some phenomenon of arrangement."</p>
+
+<p>Now, if there be a law behind the phenomena made clear to us by
+Mendelian experiments (as Mendelians are never tired of asserting), then
+it becomes in no way impertinent to ask how that law came into
+existence, and who formulated it. Darwinism, according to Driesch,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+"explained how by throwing stones one could build houses of a typical
+style." In other words, it "claimed to show how something purposively
+constructed could arise by absolute chance; at any rate this holds of
+Darwinism as codified in the seventies and eighties." Of course the
+Blind Chance doctrine breaks down utterly when it comes to be applied to
+selected cases, and nothing more definitely disposes of it than the very
+definite law which emerges as the result of the Mendelian experiments.
+That is obvious to the prophets of Mendelism; but, whilst they admit
+this, they will have nothing to say to the lawgiver. That is the
+"rankest metaphysics," as Dr. Johnstone puts it,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> or "mysticism," as
+others prefer to call it. And yet nothing is more clear than the
+logical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> sequence that, if you have a law, someone must have made it,
+and if you look upon something as "a phenomenon of arrangement," someone
+must have arranged it. But for reasons not obvious nor confessed, there
+is an objection to make any such admission. Perhaps it is the taint of
+the monism of the latter half of the last century which still persists.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, as I have elsewhere pointed out, there is a most curious
+passage in another paper by the same author in which he says: "With the
+experimental proof that variation consists largely in the unpacking and
+repacking of an original complexity, it is not so certain as we might
+like to think that the order of these events is not pre-determined." The
+writer hastens to denounce the horrid heresy on the brink of which he
+finds himself hesitating, by adding that he sees "no ground whatever for
+holding such a view," though "in the light of modern research it
+scarcely looks so absurdly improbable as before."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> It is curious that
+the writer in question does not seem to have been in any way influenced
+by the eliminative argument so potent in connection with the discussion
+on Vitalism. We ask for an explanation of the occurrences&mdash;say of
+regeneration. We find that no physical explanation in the least meets
+the needs of the case, and we are consequently obliged to look for it in
+something differing from the operations of chemistry and physics. Of
+this argument Dr. John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>stone<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> says: "It is almost impossible to
+overestimate the appeal which it makes to the investigator."</p>
+
+<p>Now, this matter of "arrangement" or of "pre-determination," when put
+forward as an explanation, even tentatively, necessitates a step
+further. That step might possibly be in the direction of pantheism,
+though, according to Driesch,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> pantheism is the doctrine "that
+reality is a something which makes itself ('<i>dieu se fait</i>,' in the
+words of Bergson), whilst theism would be any theory according to which
+the manifoldness of material reality is predetermined in an immaterial
+way." And he concludes "that those who regard the thesis of the theory
+of order as necessary for everything that is or can be, must accept
+theism, and are not allowed to speak of '<i>dieu qui se fait</i>.'" It is
+difficult to see how anyone who has studied the rigid order exhibited by
+experiments on Mendelian lines can resist the logic of this argument
+unless indeed he takes a place on Plate's platform, which admits that a
+law entails a lawgiver, but declares that of the Lawgiver of Natural
+Laws we can know nothing.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>There is a further point in connection with Mendelian theories which is
+worth noting in this connection. It would appear that no new factor is
+ever brought into being, that is, no <i>addition</i> is ever made by
+variation. According to this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> theory the things which appear to be
+added&mdash;a new colour or a new scent&mdash;were there all the time. They were
+"stopped down" or inhibited by some other factor, which, when
+eliminated, allows them to come into play, and thus to become obvious to
+the observer from whom they had been hidden. Thus, Professor Bateson
+(M., p. 17) has confidence "that the artistic gifts of mankind will
+prove to be due, not to something added to the make-up of an ordinary
+man, but to the absence of factors which in the normal person inhibit
+the development of these gifts. They are almost beyond doubt to be
+looked upon as <i>releases</i> of powers normally suppressed. The instrument
+is there, but it is 'stopped down.'"</p>
+
+<p>That all sorts of things may exist in a very small compass no doubt is
+true. Professor Bateson reminds us that Shakespeare was once "a speck of
+protoplasm not so big as a small pin's head." The
+difficulty&mdash;insuperable on ordinary monistic lines&mdash;is how all these
+things got into the germ if no additions ever take place. It was so
+difficult to account, for example, for artistic appreciation on the part
+of man or for gifts of an artistic character that Huxley was fain to
+describe them as gratuitous; but on this showing all characters are
+gratuitous in the sense that they are not acquired. We may reasonably
+inquire not merely how all these characters and factors got themselves
+"arranged" or "packed," but where they came from, and how they came to
+be in the germ at all, matters on which we receive no information in
+these addresses. No<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> doubt the author of the addresses would say that it
+was no part of his business to explain this matter; that he took this
+system of Nature as a going system and did his best to explain it as
+such and without attempting, perhaps even without desiring, to explain
+how it got a-going. If that be the case, and if ignorance on this head
+must be his confession, it is a little difficult to understand the
+confidence with which he sets himself to discuss the "extraordinary and
+far-reaching changes in public opinion [which] are coming to pass." We
+shall find these, as we pass them in review, to be extraordinary enough,
+though not very new.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, "genetic research will make it possible for a nation
+to elect by what sort of beings it will be represented not very many
+generations hence, much as a farmer can decide whether his byres shall
+be full of shorthorns or Herefords. It will be very surprising indeed if
+some nation does not make trial of this new power. They may make awful
+mistakes, but I think they will try" (S., p. 8). It is curious how the
+war, which had just commenced when these addresses were being delivered,
+has absolutely disposed, or ought to have disposed, of some of the
+prophecies of the President. Nothing, at any rate, seems more certain
+than that one result of this most disastrous struggle will be an urgent
+demand by all the States engaged in it for at least as many male
+children as the mothers of each country can supply, without special
+regard to their other characters, breedable or not breedable. We are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+even told that Germany is resorting to expedients which cannot be
+justified on Christian principles to fill her depleted homes. Whether
+this be true or not the fact remains that nothing is now more to be
+desired by all the combatant nations than what we call in Ireland "long
+families." But even if there had been no war, there is one other factor
+which makes it quite certain that no country ever will try, or if it
+ventures to try, will ever succeed in any such experiment, and that
+factor, forgotten by philosophers of this kind, is human nature. Mr.
+Frankfort Moore years ago wrote a pleasant story, called "The Marriage
+Lease," in which doctrinaire legislation of a somewhat similar kind was
+described, and its inevitable failure most amusingly depicted. The war
+disposes of another of the President's maxims (S., p. 10), that the
+decline in the birth-rate of a country is nothing to be grieved about,
+and that "the slightest acquaintance with biology" shows that the
+"inference may be wholly wrong," which asserts that "a nation in which
+population is not rapidly increasing must be in a decline" (S., p. 10).
+Human nature was neglected in the first-mentioned case, and here it is
+the turn of history to pass into the shade, history which, <i>pace</i> the
+President, has really a good deal more bearing upon a question of this
+kind than the "school-boy natural history" which he thinks capable of
+settling it. Thus we advance from breeding to Malthusianism. It is
+perhaps not wonderful that our next step should be the quiet, and of
+course painless, extinction of the unfit.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thou shalt not kill, but needs't not strive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Officiously to keep alive."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Thus wrote Clough; but our author, it appears, would go further than
+this. "The preservation of an infant so gravely diseased that it can
+never be happy or come to any good is something very like wanton
+cruelty. In private life few men defend such interference" (S. 10). And
+so such unfortunates should be got rid of, and will be "as soon as
+scientific knowledge becomes common property"&mdash;when "views more
+reasonable, and, I may add, more humane are likely to prevail." Lest we
+should be depressed by this massacre of the innocents, we are told that
+"man is just beginning to know himself for what he is&mdash;a rather
+long-lived animal, with great powers of enjoyment if he does not
+deliberately forgo them" (S., p. 9). In the past, poor fool that he has
+been, he has not availed himself of his opportunities: "Hitherto
+superstition and mythical ideas of sin have predominantly controlled
+these powers." Let us, however, take heart: "Mysticism will not die out;
+for those strange fancies knowledge is no cure; but their forms may
+change, and mysticism as a force for the suppression of joy is happily
+losing its hold on the modern world" (<i>ib.</i>, <i>ib.</i>). Let us eat and
+drink&mdash;and, it may be added, sin&mdash;for to-morrow we die. Such is the new
+gospel of science, an old enough gospel, tried and found wanting years
+before its latest prophet arose to proclaim it to the world. Surely no
+more ridiculous utterance ever was made; for its author evidently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> did
+not pause to consider that the sins which make life pleasant to some
+(for example, Thuggery) are apt to have quite another aspect to those
+through whose victimisation the pleasure is obtained. There is also here
+such a thing as the conscience, which has to be taken into account. Even
+the biological hedonist must originally possess such a thing and, it may
+be supposed, must deal with it as he would with the gravely diseased
+children, and as something which would "predominantly control his powers
+of enjoyment."</p>
+
+<p>Seriously, it may be doubted if a more pagan code of morals has ever
+been laid down, and this in the Encyclical of Science for the year, a
+code bad enough to make poor Mendel turn in his grave could he&mdash;good,
+honest man&mdash;be aware of it, and imagine that he was in any way
+responsible for it, which, by the way, is in no way the case.</p>
+
+
+<h3><a name="SCIENCE_AS_A_RULE_OF_LIFE" id="SCIENCE_AS_A_RULE_OF_LIFE"></a>
+&sect; 2. SCIENCE AS A RULE OF LIFE</h3>
+
+<p>Saint or sinner, some rule of life we must have, even if we are wholly
+unconscious of the fact. A spiritual director will help us to map out a
+course of action which will assist us to shake off some little of the
+dust of this dusty world; and a doctor will lay down for us a dietary
+which will help us to elude, for a time at least, the insidious onsets
+of the gout. Even if we take no formal steps, spiritual or corporeal,
+some rule of life we must achieve for ourselves. We must, for example,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+make up our minds whether we are to open our ears and our purse to tales
+of misery, or are to join ourselves with those whose rule of life it is
+to keep that which they have for themselves. What is true of each of us
+is none the less true of each and every race&mdash;even more true; for each
+race must make up its mind definitely as to which rule it will follow.
+And at the moment there is still doubt and indecision in this matter.</p>
+
+<p>"The moral problem that confronts Europe to-day is: What sort of
+righteousness are we, individually and collectively, to pursue? Is the
+new righteousness to be realised in a return to the old brutality? Shall
+the last values be as the first? Must ethical process conform to natural
+process as exemplified by the life of any animal that secures dominancy
+at the expense of the weaker members of its kind?"<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Such are the
+questions raised by a man of science occupying the Presidential Chair of
+an important society and speaking to that society as its President.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Christian ideals little need be said, since we know very well
+what they are, and know this most especially, that practically all of
+them are in direct opposition to what we may call the ideals of Nature,
+and exercise all their influence in frustrating such laws as that of
+Natural Selection. "Nature's Insurgent Son," as Sir Ray Lankester calls
+him,<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> is at constant war with Nature, and when we come to consider
+the matter carefully,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> in that respect most fully differentiates himself
+from all other living things, none of which make any attempt to control
+the forces of Nature for their own advantage. "Nature's inexorable
+discipline of death to those who do not rise to her standard&mdash;survival
+and parentage for those alone who do&mdash;has been from the earliest times
+more and more definitely resisted by the will of man. If we may for the
+purpose of analysis, as it were, extract man from the rest of Nature, of
+which he is truly a product and a part, then we may say that man is
+Nature's rebel. Where Nature says 'Die!' man says 'I will live.'"<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p>To this it may be added that, under the influence of Christianity, man
+goes a step further and says: "I will endeavour that as many others as
+may be shall live, and live happy, healthy lives, and shall not untimely
+die." The law of Natural Selection could not be met by more direct
+opposition. I have said that this is under the influence of
+Christianity, yet the impulse seems to be older than that, to be part of
+that moral law which excited Kant's admiration, which he coupled with
+the sight of the starry heavens, an impulse, we can scarcely doubt,
+implanted in the heart of man by God Himself. It is a remarkable fact
+that in many&mdash;some would say most&mdash;of the less civilised races of
+mankind we find these social virtues, which some would have us believe
+are degenerate features foisted on to the race by an enervating
+superstition.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Marett has carefully examined into this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> matter, and his conclusions
+are of the greatest interest.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My own theory about the peasant, as I know him, and about
+people of lowly culture in general so far as I have learnt
+to know about them, is that the ethics of amity belong to
+their natural and normal mood, whereas the ethics of enmity,
+being but 'as the shadow of a passing fear,' are relatively
+accidental. Thus to the thesis that human charity is a
+by-product, I retort squarely with the counter-thesis that
+human hatred is a by-product. The brute that lurks in our
+common human nature will break bounds sometimes; but I
+believe that whenever man, be he savage or civilised, is at
+home to himself, his pleasure and pride is to play the good
+neighbour. It may be urged by way of objection that I
+overestimate the amenities, whether economic or ethical, of
+the primitive state; that a hard life is bound to produce a
+hard man. I am afraid that the psychological necessity of
+the alleged correlation is by no means evident to me. Surely
+the hard-working individual can find plenty of scope for his
+energies without needing, let us say, to beat his wife. Nor
+are the hard-working peoples of the earth especially
+notorious for their inhumanity. Thus the Eskimo, whose life
+is one long fight against the cold, has the warmest of
+hearts. Mr. Stefanson says of his newly discovered 'Blonde
+Eskimo,' a people still living in the stone age: 'They are
+the equals of the best of our own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> race in good breeding,
+kindness, and the substantial virtues.'<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Or again, heat
+instead of cold may drive man to the utmost limit of his
+natural affections. In the deserts of Central Australia,
+where the native is ever threatened by a scarcity of food,
+his constant preoccupation is not how to prey on his
+companions. Rather he unites with them in guilds and
+brotherhoods, so that they may feast together in the spirit,
+sustaining themselves with the common hope and mutual
+suggestion of better luck to come. But there is no need to
+go so far afield for one's proofs. I appeal to those who
+have made it their business to be intimate with the folk of
+our own countryside. Is it not the fact that unselfishness
+in regard to the sharing of the necessaries of life is
+characteristic of those who find them most difficult to come
+by? The poor are by no means the least 'rich towards God.'
+At any rate, if poverty sometimes hardens, wealth,
+especially sudden wealth, can harden too, causing arrogance,
+boastfulness, and the bullying temper. 'A proud look, a
+lying tongue, and the shedding of innocent blood'&mdash;these go
+together."</p></div>
+
+<p>On the whole, then, we may perhaps conclude that the natural bias of
+mankind is towards kindness to his neighbour, however much the brute in
+him may sometimes impel him to uncharitable words or actions. And
+certainly this natural bias is intensified and made into a binding law
+by the teachings of Christ. But there is the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> point of view set
+forward in the philosophy of Nietzsche&mdash;if indeed such writings are
+worthy of the name philosophy. "The world is for the superman. Dominancy
+within the human kind must be secured at all costs. As for the old
+values, they are all wrong. Christian humility is a slavish virtue; so
+is Christian charity. Such values have become 'denaturalised.' They are
+the by-product of certain primitive activities, which were intended by
+Nature to subserve strictly biological ends, but have somehow escaped
+from Nature's control and run riot on their own account."</p>
+
+<p>The prophets of this group of ideals, or some such group of ideals, have
+no hesitation in telling us how they would direct the affairs of
+humanity if they were entrusted with their conduct. It will not be
+without interest to consider their plans and to endeavour to form some
+sort of an idea of what kind of place the world would be if they had
+their way. We can then form our own opinion as to whether a world
+conducted on such lines would be in any way a tolerable place for human
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>First of all we may dwell briefly on Natural Selection as a rule of
+life, since it has been put forward as such by quite a number of
+persons. Never, let it at once be said, by the great and gentle-hearted
+originator of that theory, who during his life had to protest as to the
+ignorant and exaggerated ideas which were expressed about it and who,
+were he now alive, would certainly be shocked at the teachings which are
+supposed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> follow from his theory and the dire results which they have
+produced.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the first place such a doctrine leads directly to the conclusion that
+war, instead of being the curse and disaster which all reasonable
+people, not to say all Christians, feel it to be, is, as Bernhardi puts
+it, "a biological necessity, a regulative element in the life of mankind
+that cannot be dispensed with." It is "the basis of all healthy
+development." "Struggle is not merely the destructive but the
+life-giving principle. The law of the strong holds good everywhere.
+Those forms survive which are able to secure for themselves the most
+favourable conditions. The weaker succumb." Humanity has had at times
+evidences of the results of this teaching which are not, one may fairly
+say, of a kind to commend themselves to any person possessed of a
+moderately kindly, not to say of a Christian, disposition. Fortunately,
+or unfortunately, we have the opportunity of studying the experiment in
+actual operation in a race which, of course in entire ignorance of the
+fact, is actually putting into practice the teachings of Natural
+Selection, though it must be admitted that the practice has not been
+successful, nor does it look like being successful, in raising that race
+above the very lowest rung of the ladder of civilisation. Captain
+Whiffen<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> has given a very complete and a very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> interesting account of
+the peoples whom he met with during his wanderings in the regions
+indicated by the title of his book. And he tells us that "the survival
+of the most fit is the very real and the very stern rule of life in the
+Amazonian forests. From birth to death it rules the Indians' life and
+philosophy. To help to preserve the unfit would often be to prejudice
+the chances of the fit. There are no arm-chair sentimentalists to oppose
+this very practical consideration. The Indian judges it by his standard
+of common sense: why live a life that has ceased to be worth living when
+there is no bugbear of a hell to make one cling to the most miserable of
+existences rather than risk greater misery?" Let us now see the kind of
+life which the author, freed himself no doubt from "the bugbear of
+hell," considers eminently sensible&mdash;the kind of life of which only an
+"arm-chair sentimentalist" would disapprove; a kind of life, it may be
+added, which will appear to most ordinarily minded people as being one
+of selfishness raised to its highest power.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with the earliest event in life. If a child, on its appearance
+in the world, appears to be in any way defective, its mother quietly
+kills it and deposits its body in the forest. If the mother dies in
+childbirth the child, unless someone takes pity on it and adopts it, is
+killed by the father, who, it may be presumed, is indisposed to take the
+trouble, perhaps indeed incapable of doing so, of rearing the motherless
+babe. That the child, in any case, immediately after birth, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> plunged
+into cold water, is not perhaps a conscious method of eliminating the
+weak, though it must operate in that direction. At a later period of
+life should any disease believed to be infectious break out in a tribe,
+"those attacked by it are immediately left, even by their closest
+relatives, the house is abandoned, and possibly even burnt. Such
+derelict houses are no uncommon sight in the forest, grimly desolate
+mementoes of possible tragedies." When a person becomes insane, he is
+first of all exorcised by the medicine man, and if that fails is put to
+death by poison by the same functionary. The sick are dealt with on
+similar lines, unless there is or seems to be a probability of speedy
+recovery. "Cases of chronic illness meet with no sympathy from the
+Indians. A man who cannot hunt or fight is regarded as useless, he is
+merely a burden on the community." Under these circumstances he is
+either left at home untended or hunted out into the bush to die, or his
+end is accelerated by the medicine man. The same fate awaits the aged,
+unless they seem to be of value to the tribe on account of their wisdom
+and experience.</p>
+
+<p>All these things placed together give us a perfect picture of life under
+Natural Selection, and having studied it we may fairly ask whether such
+a rule of life is one under which any one of us would like to live. In
+every respect it is the antipodes of the Christian rule of life, and of
+that rule of life which civilised countries, whether in fact Christian
+or not, have derived from Christianity and still practise. The
+non-Christian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> rule of the Indians is one under which might is right and
+no real individual liberty exists, all personal rights being sacrificed
+to the supposed needs and benefit of the community.</p>
+
+<p>So much from the point of view of Natural Selection, but it would appear
+that those who have given up that factor as of anything but a very minor
+value, if even that, have also their rule of life founded on their
+interpretation of Nature. Thus Professor Bateson, the great exponent of
+Mendel's doctrines, who has told us in his Presidential Address to the
+British Association that we must think much less highly of Natural
+Selection than some would have us do, has, as has been set forth in the
+previous section of this essay, his opinion as to the rule of life which
+we should follow.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Conklyn, an American enthusiast for extreme eugenistic views,
+has also set down in print his ideas as to the lines on which our lives
+are to be run under a scientific domination, and these are to be dealt
+with in another article.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> His scheme entails a forcible visit, not,
+it may be supposed, to the Altar, but to the Registry Office, for all
+persons held to be fit to perpetuate the race, and forcible restraint,
+whether by imprisonment or by sterilisation, for all others.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing which all these essays towards a scientific conduct of
+life reveal is a total want of perspective, for they proceed on the
+hypothesis&mdash;which no doubt their authors would defend&mdash;that this world
+and its concerns are everything, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> that the intellectual and physical
+improvement of the human race by any measures, however harsh, is the
+"one thing needful." But beyond this the persons who hold such views
+seem to have entirely overlooked the fact that their proposed State
+would be one conducted on principles of the bitterest and most galling
+slavery imaginable by the mind of man, a form of slavery that never
+could persist if for a moment it be conceded that it could ever come
+into operation. The fact is that the whole thing is ludicrous when
+looked at from the point of view of common sense, but how few take the
+trouble to contemplate these schemes as they would be in operation! Were
+they thus to contemplate them, they would see that, apart altogether
+from any religious considerations, they are wholly impossible, even from
+a purely political point of view. That such ideas are intolerable to
+Catholic minds, indeed to any Christian mind, goes without saying.</p>
+
+<p>Driesch (<i>Science and Philosophy of the Organism</i>, vol. ii., p. 358) has
+pointed out very clearly that "the mechanical theory of life is
+incompatible with morality," and that it is impossible to feel "morally"
+towards other individuals if one knows that they are machines and
+nothing more. Again, Professor Henslow (in <i>Present Day Rationalism
+Critically Examined</i>, p. 253) very pertinently asks those who discard
+all religious considerations and claim to rely for guidance on the
+lessons of Nature, "If you have no taste for virtue, why be virtuous at
+all, so long as you do not violate the laws of the land?"</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yet, in the face of these surely obvious facts, we find persons making
+such absurd claims as that made in a recent book by Rignano, an Italian
+writer (<i>Essays in Scientific Synthesis</i>, 1917). It is not often that
+one meets a book so full of philosophical fallacies as this. "We are
+certain of one fact," he says, "that the only organ actually brought
+into play to fight immorality is the organ of the collective conscience
+and not the religious organ." I suppose no more ludicrously inaccurate
+remark ever was set down in print; for, to begin with, the "collective
+conscience," whatever that may be, does not exist in Nature, <i>teste</i> the
+farmyard and the fowl-run; and again, whatever force is connoted by
+those words must have been set agoing&mdash;by what? By Nature? Oh, most
+emphatically No! Nature has no law against immorality; there is no
+Categorical Imperative in Nature commanding us to be chaste or kindly or
+considerate or even just. We must go elsewhere if we are to look for
+teaching in the virtues. That is the fact that we must keep clearly
+before our minds when endeavouring to estimate at their proper value the
+nostrums of writers such as those with whose works we have been dealing.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Two addresses were delivered in 1914&mdash;one in Melbourne, the
+other in Sydney. These will be referred to in this article as M. &amp; S.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Sir Oliver Lodge: <i>Continuity</i>, p. 90.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Materials for the Study of Variation</i>, London, 1894.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>The History and Theory of Vitalism</i>, p. 140.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Unconscious Memory.</i> Fifield. 1910.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Those who desire further information may be referred to <i>A
+Century of Scientific Thought</i>, by the present writer. Burns &amp; Oates.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 137-8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>The Philosophy of Biology</i>, p. 64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> In an article in the volume <i>Darwin and Modern Science</i>, p.
+100.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 319.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 238-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See the discussion on this subject in Wasmann's <i>The
+Problem of Evolution</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> R. R. Marett, Presidential Address to Folk-Lore Society,
+1915. <i>Folk-Lore</i>, vol. xxvii., pp. 1-14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>The Kingdom of Man.</i> London: Constable &amp; Co. 1907.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Lankester, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 21-27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>My Life with the Eskimo</i> (1913), p. 188.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> For a discussion of this question, see <i>Bernhardi and
+Creation</i>, by Sir James Crichton-Browne, F.R.S. Glasgow: James Maclehose
+&amp; Sons. 1916.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>The Northwest Amazons.</i> London: Constable &amp; Co. 1915.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Science and the War</i>, p. 120.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="II_THEOPHOBIA_AND_NEMESIS" id="II_THEOPHOBIA_AND_NEMESIS"></a>II. THEOPHOBIA AND NEMESIS</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="THEOPHOBIA_ITS_CAUSE" id="THEOPHOBIA_ITS_CAUSE"></a>&sect; 1. THEOPHOBIA: ITS CAUSE</h3>
+
+<p><i>Initium sapienti&aelig; timor Domini</i>; no doubt, but such fear is only the
+beginning, and is not the kind of fear&mdash;which also exists&mdash;a fear which
+engenders an actual revulsion against the idea of God.</p>
+
+<p>It is to this kind of fear which the eminent Jesuit writer Wasmann
+alludes when he says that "in many scientific circles there is an
+absolute <i>Theophobia</i>, a dread of the Creator. I can only regret this,"
+he continues, "because I believe that it is due chiefly to a defective
+knowledge of Christian philosophy and theology."</p>
+
+<p>That he is entirely right as to the existence of this feeling there can
+be no doubt; no one can read at all widely in scientific literature
+without becoming aware of it. Contrary to all the tenets of science
+there is even a bias against any such idea as that of a Creator, though
+science is supposed to confront all problems without bias of any kind. I
+need not cite instances of this feeling; I have dealt with it elsewhere.
+We may take it for granted, and proceed to look for an explanation for
+the phenomenon. Wasmann attributes it to ignorance, and he is, I feel
+sure, right; but let us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> examine the matter a little more closely. Why
+should persons&mdash;even if ignorant&mdash;have the bias which some obviously
+present against the idea of a God? Why should they wish to think that
+there is no such Being, no future existence, nothing higher than Nature?
+Some persons maintain that precedent to a denial of God there must be a
+moral failure. That I am sure is quite wrong. I should be far from
+saying that in some materialists there is not a considerable weakening
+of moral fibre, or perhaps it would be better put, a distortion of moral
+vision, as evidenced by many of the statements and proposals of
+eugenists, for example, and by the political nostrums of some who wrest
+science to a purpose for which it was not intended. This no doubt is
+true, but it is not quite the argument with which I am now dealing, and
+that argument, if it implies moral failure in the persons concerned, has
+little if any genuine foundation in fact. Mr. Devas, in that very
+remarkable book, <i>The Key to the World's Progress</i>, gives us the useful
+phrase "post-Christians." These people are really pagans living in the
+Christian era, retaining many of the excellent qualities which they owe
+neither to Nature nor to paganism, but to the inheritance&mdash;perhaps
+involuntary and unrecognised&mdash;of the influences of Christianity. Many of
+these people are kind, benevolent, scrupulously moral. They have not
+learned to be such from Nature, for Nature teaches no such lessons. Nor
+have they learnt them from paganism, for these are not pagan virtues.
+They are an inheritance from Chris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>tianity. Those, therefore, who build
+arguments as to the needlessness of religion on the foundation that
+persons without any belief in God do exhibit all the moral virtues,
+build on sand. At any rate the answer to the question which we are
+discussing is not to be found in this direction.</p>
+
+<p>Others again will perhaps maintain the thesis that fashion has a great
+deal to do with this. It is not fashionable to believe in God, or at
+least it was not. It was highly fashionable to call oneself an agnostic;
+perhaps it is not quite so much the vogue now as it was. No doubt there
+is something in this, though not very much. It is much easier to go with
+the tide than against it, and there are scientific tides as truly as
+there are tides in the fashion of dress. There was a Weismann tide, now
+nearly at dead water; there was an anti-vitalistic tide, now ebbing
+fast. When these were in full flow it was a hazardous thing for a young
+man who had to make his own way in the scientific world to swim against
+either or both of them. Fashions change, and fashion is not so set
+against the idea of a God as it was. The materialistic tide is "going
+out," and we shall see that there is some truth in the view which holds
+that the incoming tide is largely that of occultism, a thing disliked
+and despised&mdash;and indeed with some reason&mdash;by the materialistic school
+even more than it dislikes and despises theistic opinions.</p>
+
+<p>Fashion, however, is not in any way a complete answer to the question we
+are proposing to ourselves, nor is the unquestionable fact that
+scientific<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> men have a strong objection to putting their trust in
+anything which cannot be subjected either to scientific examination or
+to experiment. In this attitude there is more than a germ of truth.
+"Occam's razor" is as valuable an implement to-day as it ever was, and
+everyone will admit that we must exhaust all known causes before we
+proceed to postulate a new one.</p>
+
+<p>We have gone beyond the day of the absurd statement that thought (which
+is of course unextended) is as much a secretion of the brain as bile
+(which, equally of course, is extended) is of the liver. No one nowadays
+would commit himself to such a statement, and men in general would be
+chary of urging that we should not believe anything which we cannot
+understand. I have myself heard a distinguished man of science of his
+day&mdash;he is dead this quarter of a century&mdash;make that statement in
+public, wholly ignoring the fact that any branch of science which we may
+pursue will supply us with a hundred problems we can neither understand
+nor explain, yet the factors of which we are bound to admit. But there
+is undoubtedly a dislike to accepting anything which cannot be proved by
+scientific means, and a tendency to describe as "mysticism"&mdash;a terrible
+and damning term to apply to anything, so its employers think!&mdash;any
+explanation which postulates something more in the universe than
+operations of a physical and chemical character.</p>
+
+<p>My own opinion is that the state of things which we are considering
+finds its explanation in history, and I propose to devote a short space
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> developing this view. Of course we might, and in some ways should,
+go back to the Reformation and to the destruction of religion which then
+took place. Let us, however, pass from that period to a time some
+hundred and fifty years ago and commence our investigations there, and
+in carrying them out I propose to make considerable use of the novels of
+different periods.</p>
+
+<p>It is a truism that very little but the dry bones of history can be
+learnt from histories.</p>
+
+<p>Nowadays people are sick of reading about more or less immoral monarchs,
+and more or less corrupt politicians, and it may be suspected that most
+of us have had our bellyful of wars now that the recent contest has come
+to an end. What one really wants to learn from history is how the
+ordinary folk, like ourselves, were getting on; what their ideas were;
+how the world wagged for them. Such information we are much more likely
+to get from memoirs and, since such works have been published, from
+novels. The novelist is not to be supposed to be committed to acceptance
+of all the remarks put into the mouths of his characters, but, if he is
+of the second, not to say the first flight (and, if he is not, he is not
+worth quoting), his characters and the general tone of his book will not
+be out of touch with the times to which they belong. Since the novel
+came into existence as something more than an occasional rarity, it is
+the novelists and not the players who are "the abstract and brief
+chronicles of the times," and it is to them that we shall apply for some
+of the information we desire.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To commence with the Georgian period, it is not too much to say that
+anything like real religion was scarcely ever at a lower ebb in England.
+This is not to say that there was an absolute dearth of religion. Law
+wrote his <i>Serious Call</i> during that period, and there are few books of
+its kind which have had a greater and more lasting effect. There were
+others of like but lesser character than Law, but, on the whole, no one
+will deny that the clergy of the Established Church (Catholics were, of
+course, in the catacombs) and the religion which they represented were
+almost beneath contempt. Look, for example, at <i>Esmond</i>, the typical
+novel of its period. Is there a single clergyman in it who is not an
+object of contempt, with the sole exception of the Jesuit, who, though a
+good deal of the stage variety, at least gains a measure of the reader's
+sympathy and respect? Thackeray was not himself a Georgian, it may be
+urged. That of course is true, but no one that knows Thackeray and knows
+also Georgian literature will deny that he was saturated with it and
+understood the period with which his book dealt better perhaps than
+those who lived in it themselves. But examine the novelists of the
+period; what about Fielding? Parson Adams is respectable and lovable,
+but the general average of parson and religion is certainly about as low
+as it can be. Fielding was not a religious man. Possibly, but what then
+of Richardson? We do not find religion at a very high level there; can
+anything well be more degraded than the figure cut by Mr. Williams in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+<i>Pamela</i>, for example&mdash;the miserable curate upon whom the heroine calls
+for help in her distress? But apart from that, look at the whole
+atmosphere of the book. Why, the moral is that if you resist the immoral
+onslaughts of your master long enough he will give in and marry you, and
+you will be applauded for your successful strategy by all the
+countryside. Such is the book which all agreed to praise as an example
+of all that a book ought to be from the point of view of virtue.</p>
+
+<p>It will be admitted by all conversant with the facts that religion could
+hardly have been at a lower ebb than it was when what is known as the
+Evangelical Movement came to trouble the placid, if stagnant and turbid,
+pool of the Established Church. Of course it did not transform the
+Church entirely. Read Miss Austen's novels: the most perfect pictures of
+life ever written. There are, I suppose, some half-dozen clergymen,
+pleasant and unpleasant, depicted in them, and we may be sure that they
+fairly well represent the typical average country parson of the period.
+Whatever they may otherwise be, they all agree in one point, namely in
+the complete absence of any such thing as a trace of spirituality. But
+in the early nineteenth-century Evangelicanism&mdash;specially that terrible
+variety Calvinism&mdash;was the dominant factor where religion really
+prevailed as a living influence; and it is to its influence, I firmly
+believe, that we may attribute the genuine detestation of religion which
+was so marked a feature of a part of the Victorian and most of the
+succeeding time. I am not, of course, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>getting the Oxford Movement,
+but, important as that was and is, in its earlier years it was almost
+entirely confined to clerical circles, exercising comparatively little
+influence on the laity and practically none at all on that great middle
+class which had been so much affected by the Wesleys, Whitefield, Scott,
+Newton, and the other pundits of Evangelicanism. Take the characteristic
+novel of the movement, if novel it should be called, Newman's <i>Loss and
+Gain</i>: I do not remember a single male character in it who is not in
+Holy Orders or on the way thereto. Hence, so far as religious influences
+are concerned, it is to the Evangelical Movement that we have to look.
+Now, though in my opinion it was the parent of many evils, there is no
+doubt that there was in it real fervour; intense devotion; a genuine
+desire to know and do God's will; a burning love for our Lord; coupled
+with all which were the most distorted and distorting ideas of what was
+and what was not sin ever conceived by any brain. Of this creed I can
+speak from personal knowledge, for I was brought up in it and know it
+from bitter experience.</p>
+
+<p>The exponents of these views were never tired of instilling into their
+pupils the need for conversion, which was supposed to be a sudden
+operation. I have heard persons name the exact moment by the clock and
+the day on which theirs took place, and it was often effected by a
+single text. I have seen the Bible of an eminent leader in this line
+which contains a number of texts painted round with colours, each of
+which was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>associated with the conversion of some particular individual.
+The process was supposed to be effected by the "acceptance of Christ,"
+and though it was said to be free to all, it was clear to some at least
+of those who quite earnestly and really desired it, that, however ardent
+their desires, they could not secure their realisation. One was supposed
+to know in some mysterious manner that one was converted; the operation
+was permanent in its character; it could not be repeated; once
+thoroughly effected the converted person neither wished to sin nor
+really did sin. If anyone supposed to have been converted did relapse
+into evil ways, then he never had really been converted, but only seemed
+to have been. I have heard this circular form of argument urged most
+strongly by those who were (by constitution apparently) absolutely
+unable to see the illogical position which they were taking up. A
+further, and the most awful, part of the teaching was that however much
+one desired to be converted, and however earnestly one prayed for it, if
+one died without it damnation was certain. Lastly there was the
+encouraging thought that everything done prior to conversion was equally
+without merit; in fact, one might almost say, equally evil. These things
+were dinned into the heads of the young, in season and out of season; is
+it any wonder that so many of them grew up to hate religion? I remember
+myself the positive terror with which I went out even to minor
+entertainments, because I knew that in all probability close
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>interrogation would be made as to my spiritual condition.</p>
+
+<p>Let me be reminiscent and recall one case. I was a boy at school and
+spending my Easter vacation away from home and with friends. It was my
+lot to have to dine one night with an old friend of my father's, a
+person of some distinction, who having, I believe, been a <i>viveur</i> in
+his youth, had in later years embraced the most ferocious type of
+Evangelicanism. When the ladies had retired I was left alone with this
+formidable person, whom I eyed much as a rabbit eyes a snake into whose
+cage he has been introduced. Nor were my fears groundless, for no sooner
+was the room empty than he peremptorily demanded of me whether I was
+saved. On hearing my trembling but perfectly truthful reply that I
+really did not know, he struck the table with his fist (I can see the
+whole thing quite plainly to-day, though it is five-and-forty years
+ago), exclaiming, "Then you are a fool, and if you were to die to-night
+you most certainly would be damned." I ask those who were brought up in
+a more kindly and more rational scheme of Christianity whether it is any
+wonder that those whose youth was spent in these gloomy shades should
+welcome the thought that there was no such being as a God?</p>
+
+<p>Associated with this gloomy creed a new series of sins was invented, as
+if there were not enough already in the world. It was sinful to dance,
+even under the most domestic and proper circumstances. It was a sin to
+play cards, even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>when there was no money on the game. It was a sin to
+go to the theatre, even to behold the most inspiring and instructive
+plays. It was even held by some, as we shall see, that the writing of
+stories or works of imagination was sinful. I once heard a professor of
+this creed express the doubt whether Shakespeare had not, on the whole,
+done much more harm than good, and state that he himself would not allow
+the works of Dickens to occupy a place in a hospital library, from
+which, as a matter of fact&mdash;for on this point the discussion had
+arisen&mdash;they had been excluded by the then chaplain of the institution,
+a man of like views. In fact, the idea of God which was presented to the
+youth of that period and brought up under such influences was&mdash;I do not
+say wilfully&mdash;that of a kind of super-policeman: a hard-hearted
+policeman, with an exaggerated code of misdoings, forever waiting round
+a corner to pounce on evil-doers, and, one was obliged to think,
+apparently almost pleased at the opportunity of catching them. It need
+not be said that no disrespect is intended in this. It is a simple and
+truthful statement of the kind of impression made upon one person by the
+teachings of that age and school. Is it any wonder that persons brought
+up in such a creed should experience a feeling of relief on learning
+that there was no God, no sin, no punishment? Add to this the terrors of
+the exaggerated Sabbatarianism of the period. What was the Sunday
+programme? Two lengthy sessions of Family Prayers; two attendances&mdash;each
+lasting at least an hour and a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>quarter&mdash;on services in church; one,
+sometimes two, hours of Sunday School; no books but those of a religious
+character; no amusements of any kind even for the very young, unless the
+putting together of a dissected map of Palestine could be called an
+amusement; what a method of rendering Sunday attractive to the young!</p>
+
+<p>Is it any wonder that those brought up on such a plan abandoned, with a
+sigh of relief, all religious exercises when at last they were able to
+do so? I notice that Mr. Belfort Bax, in his <i>Reminiscences of a Mid and
+Late Victorian</i>, alludes to this matter, saying that, "The most cruel of
+all the results of mid-Victorian religion was, perhaps, the rigid
+enforcement of the most drastic Sabbatarianism. The horror of the tedium
+of Sunday infected more or less the whole of the latter portion of the
+week." <i>Experto crede!</i> He says further, dealing with the 'fifties, that
+"the intellectual possibilities of the English people were then stunted
+and cramped by the influence of the dogmatic Calvinistic theology which
+was the basis of its traditional sentiment;"&mdash;it is exactly the point
+which I am trying to make.</p>
+
+<p>We may now examine two instances of the kind of teaching with which I am
+dealing and its results. The first is that of the poet Cowper, and
+anyone who takes the trouble to read his life as written by Southey will
+find the whole piteous tale fully drawn out. Southey hated the Catholic
+Church, of which, by the way, he knew absolutely nothing, but he had
+sufficient sense to reject the teachings of Calvinism. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>Cowper was at
+times insane and at other times of anything but a well-balanced mind,
+and he was just the kind of man who never ought to have been brought
+under the influences to which he was subjected. His principal adviser
+was the Rev. John Newton, a well-known Calvinistic clergyman of the
+Church of England. He must have been a man of compelling character, for
+he it was who brought the Rev. Thomas Scott, Rector of Aston Sandford,
+out of Socinianism, which, though a minister of the Church of England,
+he professed, into the Calvinistic view of things, as Scott himself
+tells us in his book <i>The Force of Truth</i>; and it must not be forgotten
+that it was to the writings of this same Scott that Newman tells us (in
+his <i>Apologia</i>) that he owed his very soul. Newton, like many of his
+fellows, had no sort of doubt as to his right to act as a director of
+souls, nor of his profound knowledge of how they should be dealt with.
+Yet it is to be remembered that, whilst the Catholic priest is obliged
+to undergo a long and careful training before he is permitted to take up
+this perilous task, Newton and those of his kind undertook it without
+any training whatever. Cowper, as everybody knows, was carefully and
+kindly tended by Mrs. Unwin, a woman a good deal older than himself,
+against whose character no word of reproach was ever uttered, the widow
+of an old friend of the poet. Newton wanted to drive Mrs. Unwin out of
+his house, but here at least Cowper rebelled and showed his very just
+annoyance, Newton actu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>ally urged Cowper to abandon the task of
+translating Homer, a labour undertaken to distract his poor sick mind
+from thinking of itself, because such work, not being of a religious
+character, partook of the nature of sin. It is no wonder that such a
+rule of life had not infrequently the most distressing consequences.
+Newton himself admits that his preaching had the reputation of driving
+people into lunacy. In a letter asking that steps may be taken to remove
+one poor victim to an asylum he says: "I hope the poor girl is not
+without some concern for her soul; and, indeed, I believe a concern of
+this kind was the beginning of her disorder. I believe," he continues,
+"my name is up about the county for preaching people mad ... whatever
+may be the immediate cause, I suppose we have near a dozen, in different
+degrees, disordered in their heads, and most of them I believe truly
+gracious people."</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn to the other example which I propose to select, that given
+by Mr. Gosse in his truly remarkable work <i>Father and Son</i>, one of the
+most faithful pictures of life ever written. The first instance shall be
+an extract from the diary of the mother, obviously a woman of great
+power and gifts if she had been given an opportunity of displaying them.
+"When I was a very little child," she writes, "I used to amuse myself
+and my brothers with inventing stories such as I had read. Having, as I
+suppose, naturally a restless mind and busy imagination, this soon
+became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> brothers were
+always fond of encouraging this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my
+maid, a still greater tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it,
+until Miss Shore" (a Calvinistic governess), "finding it out, lectured
+me severely, and told me it was wicked. From that time forth I
+considered that to invent a story of any kind was a sin. But the desire
+to do so was too deeply rooted in my affections to be resisted in my own
+strength," (she was at this time nine years of age), "and unfortunately
+I knew neither my corruption nor my weakness, nor did I know where to
+gain strength. The longing to invent stories grew with a violence;
+everything I heard or read became food for my distemper. The simplicity
+of truth was not sufficient for me; I must needs embroider imagination
+upon it, and the folly, vanity and wickedness which disgraced my heart,
+are more than I am able to express. Even now (at the age of
+twenty-nine), though watched, prayed and striven against, this is still
+the sin which most easily besets me. It has hindered my prayers and
+prevented my improvement, and therefore has humbled me very much." It is
+narrated of the well-known Father Healy that a young lady having
+consulted him as to the sin of vanity, she feeling convinced, when she
+looked in her glass, that she was a very pretty girl, was answered by
+him, "My child, that is not a sin; it is a mistake!" It wanted some wise
+adviser to make the same remark to this poor tortured and deluded woman.</p>
+
+<p>Illness under this code was always a punish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>ment sent from heaven, as,
+indeed, it may be; but, "if anyone was ill it showed that 'the Lord's
+hand was extended in chastisement,' and much prayer was poured forth in
+order that it might be explained to the sufferer, or to his relations,
+in what he or they had sinned. People would, for instance, go on living
+over a cesspool, working themselves up into an agony to discover how
+they had incurred the displeasure of the Lord, but never moving away."
+One last instance, the most remarkable of all, and we may leave this
+book. It need hardly be said that a father of the kind depicted in this
+book would have a holy horror of the Catholic Church, and he had. He
+"welcomed any social disorder in any part of Italy, as likely to be
+annoying to the Papacy." He "celebrated the announcement in the
+newspapers of a considerable emigration from the Papal dominions, by
+rejoicing at this outcrowding of many, throughout the harlot's domain,
+from her sin and her plagues," and he even carried his hatred so far as
+to denounce the keeping of Christmas, which to him was nothing less than
+an act of idolatry.</p>
+
+<p>On a certain Christmas Day, the servants, greatly daring, disobeyed the
+order of their master and actually had the audacity to make a small
+plum-pudding for themselves. Actuated by pity, no doubt, and by a
+feeling of kindness towards a small boy deprived of all the joys of the
+season, they pressed a slice of this pudding upon the son, who
+succumbed&mdash;very naturally&mdash;to the temptation. Shortly after, however,
+being afflicted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> by a stomach-ache, remorse came upon him and he rushed
+to his father, exclaiming: "Oh! papa, papa, I have eaten of flesh
+offered to idols!" When the father learned what had happened, he sternly
+said, "Where is the accursed thing?" Having heard that it was on the
+kitchen table, "he took me by the hand, and ran with me into the midst
+of the startled servants, seized what remained of the pudding, and with
+the plate in one hand and me still tight in the other, ran till we
+reached the dust-heap, where he flung the idolatrous confectionery on to
+the middle of the ashes, and then raked it deep down into the mass. The
+suddenness, the velocity of this extraordinary act, made an impression
+on my memory which nothing will ever efface." Such is a plain
+unvarnished account of the kind of way in which numbers of people were
+brought up in the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. Can it be
+wondered that those who had such a childhood should grow up with an
+absolute horror of the Person in Whose name such things&mdash;absurdities
+when not positive crimes&mdash;were perpetrated? I firmly believe that these
+wholly false ideas of God and of sin have had more to do with the spread
+of materialism than many will perhaps be disposed to admit. Educated
+people, especially those trained in scientific methods, demand a certain
+common sense and sobriety in their beliefs. If they are brought up to
+believe that a grievous sin is committed when they invent an innocent
+story; when they go to a theatre or to a dance, or play a game of cards;
+if they have never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> known the demands of real Christianity as put
+forward by the Catholic Church, is it likely that they will cleave to a
+faith which apparently engenders such absurdities as the Christmas
+pudding episode? It is, indeed, as Father Wasmann says, a thousand
+pities that the reasonableness, the logic, the dignity of the Catholic
+religion should remain for ever hidden from the eyes and minds of many
+who so often are as they are, because they were brought up as they were.
+In all these things we find the key to another problem. In another essay
+in this volume I have called attention to the glad intelligence, as it
+seems to a certain school of writers, that we are freed from the
+"bugbear of sin," as one of them puts it; able to enjoy ourselves
+without any thoughts of that kind.</p>
+
+<p>Now I cannot but believe that such writers are thinking of the bugbear
+of artificial sins invented by the professors of a gloomy creed of
+religion. It is not to be supposed that any serious writer&mdash;and those to
+whom I allude are eminently such&mdash;would speak or write with pleasure and
+satisfaction of escaping from the bugbear of sins against morality or
+against one's neighbour; from the bugbear of dishonesty or theft; of
+taking away a person's character; of running away with his wife. I am
+convinced that it is the invented crimes of card-playing, theatre-going,
+and the like to which they are alluding: it could not surely be
+otherwise; and that makes it all the more unfortunate that before
+misusing a technical term like the word "sin," and thus perhaps
+mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>leading some young and ardent mind, such writers could not follow
+Father Wasmann's advice and study some simple manual of Catholic ethics,
+from which they would learn the real doctrine of Christianity and would
+discover how very different a thing it is and how very much more
+reasonable than the distorted caricature which we have been studying.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="THEOPHOBIA_ITS_NEMESIS" id="THEOPHOBIA_ITS_NEMESIS"></a>&sect; 2. THEOPHOBIA: ITS NEMESIS</h3>
+
+<p>Whether my view as to the cause, or one of the causes, is right or not,
+the fact remains that by the mid-Victorian period England had fallen to
+a very large extent a prey to materialism. Many people attribute the
+sudden onslaught of this to the publication of <i>The Origin of Species</i>
+and the controversies of the foolish which followed thereon. Samuel
+Butler, that brilliant writer who has not even yet come into his own,
+sums up in his novel <i>The Way of All Flesh</i> (and it may incidentally be
+remarked, in himself) most of the characteristics of the day. Many a
+parsonage home like that of the Rev. Theobald Pontifex existed in those
+days, and more than one Ernest Pontifex emerged from them. Now in this
+book Butler states that "the year 1858 was the last of a term during
+which the peace of the Church of England was singularly unbroken," and
+there no doubt he is right; "The Evangelical Movement ... had become
+almost a matter of ancient history. Tractarianism had subsided into a
+tenth-day's wonder; it was at work, but it was not noisy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Then he says
+the calm was broken by the publication of three books: <i>Essays and
+Reviews</i>, <i>The Origin of Species</i>, <i>Criticisms on the Pentateuch</i> by
+Colenso. Few persons probably now remember the first and the last of
+these books; the fame of the second is likely to last long.</p>
+
+<p>Whether again Butler is right in his idea as to the causes or not, as to
+the fact there can be no doubt. We have arrived at a period when the
+prevalent opinion amongst the intellectual classes was that
+religion&mdash;belief in anything which could not be fully understood&mdash;was
+impossible once one began to think seriously about it. Those who did not
+really look into such questions might go on considering themselves to
+believe in revelation, but the moment that a man seriously tackled the
+subject, his religion was bound to go, just as that of Ernest Pontifex
+did at the end of five minutes' conversation with an atheistic
+shoemaker.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Agnosticism and materialism were in the air, and remained
+the dominant features for quite a number of years. There were those who
+deplored the loss of their faith such as it had been. Huxley obviously
+did; and Romanes, who afterwards returned to the Church of England,
+con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>fessedly did. Such persons, and there were many of them, honestly
+were unable to believe, and said so. A great deal of this was due to the
+attitude of popular science at that time. It was in a hot fit, and was
+going to explain everything, if not to-day, at least to-morrow. Now, as
+Sir Oliver Lodge told us before the war, in his book <i>Continuity</i>, we
+are in a cold fit and we seem only to know that nothing can be known.
+Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known as the creator of <i>Sherlock Holmes</i>,
+tells us in a recent book from which I shall have further to quote (<i>The
+New Revelation</i>, Hodder and Stoughton, 1918): "When I had finished my
+medical education in 1882, I found myself, like many young medical men,
+a convinced materialist as regards our personal destiny." With the facts
+contained in this statement I fully agree. The date in question is
+almost exactly that at which I also became a qualified medical man, and
+I, and I fancy most of my generation, believed ourselves to be agnostics
+if not atheists. It was the atmosphere of the time, and so strong as
+with difficulty to be resisted by those who resorted to the
+Universities. The point which I want to make is that during the latter
+part of the Victorian period we had come to a generation of
+intellectuals practically devoid of religion and followed in that
+respect by that always larger portion of any generation which, not
+having brains to think for itself, yet desiring to follow the
+intellectual <i>motif</i> of the day, adopts whatever is the fashionable
+attitude for the moment towards unseen things. Yesterday it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> blank
+negation; to-day it tends, as we shall see, to be spiritualism;
+to-morrow it might be earnest faith: let us hope so. And as to
+Calvinism, all this was <i>post hoc</i> of course; <i>propter hoc</i> also as I
+think.</p>
+
+<p>What followed? That is what we now have to consider. The first thing
+which happened was the very natural discovery that science cannot
+explain everything; has in fact a strictly limited range of country to
+deal with. This discovery began to sap the foundations of materialism.
+Then there came the further discovery that all was not well, as so many
+supposed that it would be, under a scheme of life divorced from all
+connection with religion. Mr. Lucas, who has given the world many
+pleasant books, none of them with any obvious bias in favour of
+religion, in <i>Over Bemertons</i> (one of the most pleasant) makes one of
+his characters, <i>Mr. Dabney</i>, deplore the loss of the seriousness of the
+Victorian era: "We believe only in pleasure and success; our one ideal
+is getting wealth." Parenthetically, is not that just what might be
+expected? If there is really nothing but this world, what better can we
+seek than as much pleasure as we can get out of it? <i>Over Bemertons</i> was
+first published in 1908, and the remedy which <i>Mr. Dabney</i> then
+suggested, with a really curious prophetical insight, has just been
+vigorously applied. That remedy was "War, nothing more or less. A bloody
+war&mdash;not a punitive expedition or 'a sort of a war'" (he quoted these
+words with white fury) "'that might get us right again.' 'At great
+cost,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> I said. 'A surgical operation,' he replied, 'if the only means
+of saving life, cannot be called expensive.'"</p>
+
+<p>Finally the discovery was made that mankind will not for long be content
+to do altogether without religion; a need for something more than bread
+alone being ingrained in his nature. Thus even the professedly
+materialistic societies try to afford something in the way of religious
+exercises. I have recently seen a notice of one of the so-called Ethical
+Societies in which the members (at their meetings, I take it) are
+"requested to silently meditate for five minutes on the good life."<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>
+It would seem to be quite as beneficial and more practical to meditate
+on split infinitives. A substitute for religion has to be found; what is
+it to be? In the years before the war Mr. Masefield published a very
+interesting book called <i>Multitude and Solitude</i>, which narrates the
+trials and troubles of two young Englishmen who make a perilous journey
+to Africa in search of the secret of the sleeping-sickness. In all their
+trials they never seem to have thought of prayer, in which it may be
+assumed they did not believe, but when they returned to England it
+occurred to one of them that there was something wanting in their life,
+and he propounded to his friend the view that "the world is just coming
+to see that science is not a substitute for religion," which is one of
+the things urged in this paper. He then proceeded to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> rather
+startling conclusion that science <i>is</i> "religion of a very deep and
+austere kind." One is reminded of a well-known passage in the Bible:
+"<i>Inveni et aram in qua scriptum erat</i> <span class="smcap">Ignoto Deo</span>." To set up science as
+an "unknown God" seems a curious choice, even more curious than the
+choice of humanity, which&mdash;pitiable object as it is&mdash;was at least made
+in the image of God. Not to pile up instance upon instance, let us
+content ourselves with remembering that Mr. Wells, who in his earlier
+novels had certainly not displayed any marked affection for religion, in
+the last published before the war (<i>Marriage</i>) brings his hero face to
+face with the great realities, and makes him exclaim to his wife that he
+may "die a Christian yet," and urge upon her the need for prayer, if
+only out into the darkness. Of course, as all the reading world knows,
+since the war commenced, Mr. Wells has set up his own altar "<span class="smcap">Ignoto
+Deo</span>," not with much more satisfactory results than those attained by Mr.
+Masefield. It is an historical fact that times of war have also been
+times of religious awakening, and it is natural that they should be so,
+for even the most careless must be brought to contemplate something more
+than the day's enjoyment. It is not then wonderful that the terrible war
+which has raged with Europe as the cockpit, and practically all the
+nations of the world as participants, should turn the minds of those who
+are in the righting line towards thoughts which in times of peace may
+never have found entrance there. From all sides one hears that this is
+so, yet here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> again it is too often the case that an "unknown God" is
+sought, and from want of proper direction not always found. In a
+recently published memoir of one of the many splendid young fellows by
+whose death the world has been made poorer during this calamitous war,
+there is this moving passage: "I know that many hearts are turning
+towards <i>something</i>, but cannot find satisfaction in what the Christian
+sects offer. And many, failing to find what they need, fall back sadly
+into vague uncertainties and disbelief, as I often do myself." We badly
+need a St. Paul who will say to these and other anxious hearts, "<i>Quod
+ergo ignorantes colitis, hoc ego annuntio vobis</i>."</p>
+
+<p>However, it is much more with those who only "stand and wait" than with
+those who were actually in the trenches that we are concerned; what
+about the lamentable army of wives and mothers, widows and orphans,
+people bereft of those they loved or rising every morning in dread of
+the news which the day might bring forth; what about these and their
+attitude towards the things unseen? That many such have turned to some
+genuine form of religion is happily beyond dispute, but it is also
+unquestionably true that thousands have turned aside to the attractions
+of spiritualism. A recent article in the Literary Supplement of the
+<i>Times</i> commenced with the statement that "Among the strange, dismaying
+things cast up by the tide of war are those traces of primitive
+fatalism, primitive magic, and equivocal divination which are within
+general knowledge." The writer of the article in question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> thinks that
+as we have taken a huge and lamentable step backwards in civilisation,
+we need not be surprised that we should also have receded in the
+direction of those primitive instincts to which he calls attention. This
+process had, however, begun long before the war.</p>
+
+<p>The late Dr. Ryder, Provost of the Birmingham Oratory, was a very shrewd
+observer of public affairs and a very close and dear friend of the
+present writer. It must be more than twenty years ago since he remarked
+to me that he thought that materialism had shot its bolt and that the
+coming danger to religion was spiritualism, a subject on which, if I
+remember right, he had written more than one paper. I asked him what led
+him to that conclusion, and his reply was to ask me whether I had not
+noticed the great increase in number of the items in second-hand book
+catalogues&mdash;a form of literature to which we were both much
+addicted&mdash;under the heading "<span class="smcap">Occult</span>." Since the war, however, there can
+be no doubt about the fact that spiritualism has made great strides. A
+thousand pieces of evidence prove it. Look, for example, at the enormous
+vogue of <i>Raymond</i>, a book of which I say nothing, out of personal
+regard for its author and genuine respect for his honesty and
+fearlessness. But I return to Sir Arthur Doyle's book, and we find him
+assuring us that he is personally "in touch with thirteen mothers who
+are in correspondence with their dead sons," and adds that in only one
+of these cases was the individual concerned with psychic matters before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+the war. Further, he explains that it was the war which induced him to
+take an active interest in a subject which had been before no more than
+one of passing curiosity. "In the presence of an agonised world," he
+writes, "hearing every day of the deaths of the flower of our race in
+the first promise of their unfulfilled youth, seeing around one the
+wives and mothers who had no clear conception whither their loved one
+had gone to, I seemed suddenly to see that this subject with which I had
+so long dallied was not merely a study of a force outside the rules of
+science, but that it really was something tremendous, a breaking down of
+the walls between the two worlds, a direct undeniable message from
+beyond, a call of hope and of guidance to the human race at the time of
+its deepest affliction." Perhaps it is not wonderful that spiritualism
+should have won the success which it has, for it offers a good deal to
+those who can believe in it. It offers definite intercourse with the
+departed; positive knowledge as to the existence of a future state, and
+even as to its nature&mdash;the last-named intelligence not always very
+attractive. Further, it requires no particular creed and, it would
+appear, no special code of morals; for one of its teachings, I gather,
+is that it does not greatly matter what a man thinks or even does, so
+far as his future welfare is concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Sir A. Doyle's book is the least convincing exposition of spiritualism I
+have yet read&mdash;and I have studied many of them&mdash;but it may be taken to
+include the latest views on the subject.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> Amongst the revelations which
+he gives, there is one purporting to come from a spirit who "had been a
+Catholic and was still a Catholic, but had not fared better than the
+Protestants; there were Buddhists and Mahommedans in her sphere, but all
+fared alike." Another spirit informed Sir A. Doyle that he had been a
+freethinker, but "had not suffered in the next life for that reason."
+This is not the occasion, and in no way am I the man, to tackle the
+subject of spiritualism, but this at least I think may be said, that the
+person who argues that the whole thing is a fraud and deception does not
+know what he is talking about. Look at the history of the world&mdash;<i>Quod
+semper</i>, <i>quod ubique</i>, almost <i>quod ab omnibus</i>. The records of early
+missionaries&mdash;Jesuits especially&mdash;teem with accounts of the same kind of
+phenomena as we read of in connection with s&eacute;ances to-day, occurring in
+all sorts of places and amongst widely separated races of mankind. We
+have it in the <i>Odyssey</i>; we have it in Cicero and in Pliny; we have it
+in the Bible. All this is not a mere matter of imposition.</p>
+
+<p>In a very curious book recently published (<i>Some Revelations as to
+"Raymond</i>," by a Plain Citizen; London, Kegan Paul), to which some
+attention may now be devoted, the writer, himself a firm believer in
+spiritualism and one obviously in a position to write about it, points
+out that the old term "magic" has been relegated to the performances of
+conjurers, and the terminology so altered as to make spiritualism appear
+to be a new gospel, whereas the contrary is the case.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> "The impression
+prevailed that civilised people were in presence of a new order of
+phenomena, and were acquiring a new outlook into the regions of the
+Unknown; whereas the truth was that they were merely repeating, under
+new social conditions and in a new environment, the same experiences
+that had happened to their ancestors during some thousands of years."
+Here I may interject the remark that as far as my reading and knowledge
+go, no spirit has ever had a good word to say for the Catholic religion.
+What that Church thinks about spiritualism has been made quite clear,
+and that is enough for Catholics. Before leaving the Plain Citizen, we
+must not omit to notice one strange hypothesis of his, all the stranger
+as coming from a professed spiritualist. He maintains&mdash;perhaps it would
+be fairer to say that he lays down as a working hypothesis&mdash;the
+following thesis: Spiritualism involves the existence of mediums, and
+mediums for the most part have to make their living by their operations.
+They will not be averse to making their incomes as large as possible.
+For the purpose of acquiring information as to the affairs of possible
+clients, they have, so he asserts, an almost Freemasonic Association by
+which all sorts of pieces of intelligence concerning persons of
+importance are collected and disseminated amongst the brotherhood. It
+did not require much imagination to suppose that the war would add to
+the number of their clients, whether their claims had real foundation or
+not; what they wanted above all things was some one of undoubted
+position who would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> "boom the movement," in the slang of the day. They
+laid all their plans to get their man in the author of <i>Raymond</i>, and
+they got him. Such is his thesis for what it is worth.</p>
+
+<p>However, it is time to conclude. What I wanted to show was that
+Theophobia was the Nemesis of a dreadful type of Protestantism, and that
+spiritualism was the Nemesis of the materialism associated with that
+Theophobia. There is no need to point out to Catholic readers where the
+remedy lies, and where the real Communion of the saints is to be found.
+They are not likely to be drawn aside by the "Lo here!" of the "false
+Christs" whom we were promised and whom we are getting. It is for those
+who have themselves experienced the consolations of the Catholic
+religion to do their best, each in his own way, to make known to others
+outside our body what things may be found within.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> An excellent example may be found in Butler's own career.
+Destined for the ministry of the Church of England (with his own full
+consent), he was set to teach a class in a Sunday school. Finding that
+some of his pupils were unbaptized, yet no worse-behaved than the
+others, and obviously quite ignorant of what baptism meant, he abandoned
+all belief. His biographer, equally ignorant, in narrating, with
+approval, this change of opinion, says, "Paley had produced evidence of
+Christianity, but none so unmistakable as this to the contrary."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Dr. Johnson once remarked that "to find a substitution for
+violated morality was the leading feature in all perversions of
+religion."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="III_WITHIN_AND_WITHOUT_THE_SYSTEM" id="III_WITHIN_AND_WITHOUT_THE_SYSTEM"></a>III. WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE SYSTEM</h2>
+
+
+<p>Exclusive and long-continued devotion to any special line of study is
+liable to lead to forgetfulness of other, even kindred, lines&mdash;almost,
+in extreme cases, to a kind of atrophy of other parts of the mind. There
+is the example of Darwin and his self-confessed loss of the &aelig;sthetic
+tastes he once possessed. Nor are scientific studies the only ones to
+produce such an effect. The amusing satire in <i>The New Republic</i> has,
+perhaps, lost some of its tang now that the prototype of its Professor
+of History is almost forgotten, but it has not lost its point. Lady
+Ambrose tells the tale: "He said to me in a very solemn voice, 'What a
+terrible defeat that was which we had at Bouvines!' I answered
+timidly&mdash;not thinking we were at war with anyone&mdash;that I had seen
+nothing about it in the papers. 'H'm!' he said, giving a sort of grunt
+that made me feel dreadfully ignorant, 'why, I had an excursus on it
+myself in the <i>Arch&aelig;ological Gazette</i> only last week.' And, do you know,
+it turned out that the Battle of Bouvines was fought in the Thirteenth
+Century, and had, as far as I could make out, something to do with Magna
+Charta."</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is, however, among writers on biological subjects that we find the
+most salient instances of this contraction. With extraordinary
+self-abnegation they seem, in the contemplation of the problem with
+which they are concerned, to forget that they themselves are living
+things, and, more than that, the living things of whom they ought to
+know and could know most, however little that most may be. When the
+biologist begins to philosophise as, after the manner of his kind, he
+often does, he should leave his microscope and look around him; whereas
+he often forgets even to change the high for the low power. Thus he
+limits his field of vision and forgets, when attempting his explanation,
+that it is only <i>within a system</i> that he is working. Professor Ward, in
+<i>Naturalism and Agnosticism</i>, says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"From the strict premisses of Positivism we can never prove
+the existence of other minds or find a place for such
+conceptions as cause and substance; for into these premisses
+the existence of our own mind and its self-activity have not
+entered. And accordingly we have seen Naturalism led on in
+perfect consistency to resolve man into an automaton that
+goes of itself as part of a still vaster automaton, Nature
+as mechanically conceived, which goes of itself. True, this
+mechanism goes of itself because it <i>is</i> going, and being
+altogether inert, cannot stop or change. How it ever started
+is indeed a question which science cannot answer, but which,
+on the other hand, it has no occasion to ask: time, its one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+independent variable, extends indefinitely without hint of
+either beginning or end. Such a system of knowledge, <i>once
+we are inside it</i>, so to say, is entirely self-contained and
+complete."</p></div>
+
+<p>"<i>Once we are inside it!</i>" what so many writers forget or ignore is that
+they <i>are</i> inside it, and that their explanations do not explain the
+system or how it came to be there or to be in operation. Everybody is
+familiar with Paley's example of the watch found on the heath. Let us
+carry it a little further. Suppose some student, after devoting years of
+patient examination to the watch, were to come forward and say: "I have
+discovered the secret of this watch. There is a spring in it which
+possesses resiliency, and it is that which drives the wheels. I think I
+have heard people say that there must have been a watchmaker to design
+and construct this piece of machinery, but, in face of my discoveries,
+any such explanation is wholly unnecessary and may be altogether
+abandoned."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this analogy may be regarded as exaggerated; but, before thus
+condemning it, let the following passage be studied. It is from a very
+important book recently published, which claims (and has had its claim
+supported by many periodicals) to have done away with any need for an
+explanation of life beyond that which can be given by chemistry and
+physics, Jacques Loeb's <i>Organism as a Whole, from a Physico-Chemical
+Viewpoint</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It would be hard to find a worse example of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> confused thinking than that
+of the following passage:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The idea that the organism as a whole cannot be explained
+from a physico-chemical viewpoint rests most strongly on the
+existence of animal instincts and will. Many of the
+instinctive actions are 'purposeful,' <i>i.e.</i> assisting to
+preserve the individual and the race. This again suggests
+'design' and a designing 'force,' which we do not find in
+the realm of physics. We must remember, however, that there
+was a time when the same 'purposefulness' was believed to
+exist in the cosmos where everything seemed to turn
+literally and metaphorically around the earth, the abode of
+man. In the latter case, the anthropo- or geo-centric view
+came to an end when it was shown that the motions of the
+planets were regulated by Newton's law, <i>and that there was
+no room left for the activities of a guiding power</i>.
+Likewise, in the realm of instincts, when it can be shown
+that these instincts may be reduced to elementary
+physico-chemical laws, the assumption of design becomes
+superfluous." (<i>Italics mine.</i>)</p></div>
+
+<p>In the first place the "purposefulness" of the movements of the planets
+is not affected in the very least by the question of heliocentricism.
+What the author is probably thinking of is an exaggerated and obsolete
+teleology, but that is not what seems to be the purport of the passage.
+Let that pass. The main confusion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> lies in the application of the term
+"Law." The Ten Commandments, and our familiar friend D.O.R.A., are laws
+we must obey or take the consequences of our disobedience. The "laws"
+which the writer is dealing with are not anything of this kind. Newton's
+Law is not a thing made by Newton, but an orderly system of events which
+was in existence long before Newton's time, but was first demonstrated
+by him. It tells us how a certain part of the system works&mdash;when we are
+"<i>inside it</i>." It does not in the least explain the system any more than
+the discovery of the resiliency of the spring of the watch explains the
+watch itself. So far from dispensing with "the activities of a guiding
+power," Newton's law is positively clamant for a final explanation,
+since it does not tell us, nor does it pretend to tell us, how the "law"
+came into existence, still less how the planets came to be there, or how
+they happen to be in a state of motion at all. Writers of this kind
+never seem to have grasped the significance of such simple matters as
+the different kinds of causes, or to be aware that a formal cause is not
+an efficient cause, and that neither of them is a final cause. Coming to
+the latter part of the paragraph, it is in no way proved that instincts
+can be reduced to physico-chemical laws, and, suppose it were proved,
+the assumption of design would be exactly where it is at this moment. It
+is the old story of St. Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna and their discussion
+on abiogenesis, and surely biologists might be expected to have heard of
+that. The same confusion of thought is to be met with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> elsewhere in this
+book, and in other similar books, and a few instances may now be
+examined.</p>
+
+<p>Samuel Butler, in <i>Life and Habit</i>, warns his readers against the dicta
+of scientific men, and more particularly against his own dicta, though
+he made no claim to be a scientist. If his reader <i>must</i> believe in
+something, "let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting of
+Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's first
+Epistle to the Corinthians." And he exclaims: "Let us have no more 'Lo,
+here!' with the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows;
+no sooner has he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great
+flourish of trumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than
+himself." That is a somewhat unkind way of putting it; but undoubtedly
+theory after theory is put forward, and often claimed to be final, only
+to disappear when another explanation takes its place. Thus at the
+moment we are in the full flood of the chemical theory which is employed
+to explain inheritance. That heredity exists we all know, but so far we
+know nothing about its mechanism. Darwin, with "Pangenesis," and others,
+using other titles, argued in favour of a "particulate" explanation, but
+the number of particles which would be necessary to account for the
+phenomena involved, this and other difficulties, have practically put
+this explanation out of court. Then we had the Mnemic theory of Hering,
+Butler, and others, by which the unconscious memory of the embryo&mdash;even
+the germ&mdash;is the explanation. Quite lately the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> mnemic theory has been
+claimed by Rignano in his <i>Scientific Synthesis</i> as a complete
+explanation, in forgetfulness of the fact that even the all-powerful
+protozoon can only remember what has passed and could certainly not
+<i>remember</i> that it was some day going to breed a man. At the moment,
+things are explained on a chemical basis, though that basis is far from
+firm; is of a shifting nature, and a little hazy in details. Some time
+ago, colloids were the cry. A President of the British Association
+almost led one to imagine that "the homunculus in the retort" might be
+expected in a few weeks. But the chemists would have none of this, and
+denied that the colloids, about which they ought to know more than do
+the biologists, had that promise in them which had been claimed. We had
+Leduc and his "fairy flowers," as now we have Loeb and others with their
+metabolites and hormones. As to these last, there seems to be no kind of
+doubt that the internal secretions of many organs and structures have
+effects which were, even a few years ago, quite unsuspected. Those of
+the thyroid and adrenals are excellent examples.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to be the fate, however, of all supporters of new theories to
+run into extravagances. Darwin had to remind his enthusiastic disciples
+that Natural Selection could not create variations, and we may feel some
+confidence that Hering, were he alive, would urge his followers to bear
+in mind that memory cannot create a state of affairs which never
+existed. So far we may certainly say that these internal secretions do
+produce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> certain physical effects, some of them effects not to be
+suspected by the uninformed reader. There seems to be very good evidence
+that the growth of antlers in deer depends upon an internal secretion
+from the sex-gland and from the interstitial tissue of that gland; for
+it is apparently upon the secretions of this portion of the gland that
+the secondary sexual characters depend, and not merely these, but also
+the normal sexual instincts. And this takes us a stage further. The
+extreme claim is that all instincts, in fact all thoughts and
+operations, are in the last analysis chemical or chemico-physical. Let
+us examine this claim for a moment. The adrenals are two inconspicuous
+ductless bodies situated immediately above the kidneys. Not many years
+ago, when the present writer was a medical student, all that was known
+about these organs was that when stricken with a certain disease, known
+as Addison's disease from the name of its first describer, the
+unfortunate possessor of the diseased glands became of a more or less
+rich chocolate colour. To-day we know that the internal secretion of
+these organs is a very powerful styptic, and there is good reason to
+believe that a copious discharge accompanies an unusual exhibition of
+rage. When we are told things of this kind we must first of all remember
+that the adrenalin does not cause the rage, though it may produce its
+concomitant phenomena. If a man flies into a violent passion because
+someone has trodden upon his corns, and there is a copious flow of
+adrenalin from the glands, it is not that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> flow which has caused his
+rage. It may be the flow from the interstitial tissue of the sex-glands
+which engenders sexual feelings, but then those are almost wholly
+physical, and only in a very minor sense&mdash;if even if any true
+sense&mdash;psychical. Persons who take the extreme view have never yet
+suggested that there is a characteristic hormone connected with those
+psychical attributes alluded to in the chapter of the Corinthians
+recommended to our notice by Butler. In fact they seem to ignore all but
+the lower or vegetable characters when dealing with psychology from the
+chemico-physical point of view.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we come again to the fatal and fundamental defect of this as of
+other "explanations"; it is an explanation "<i>within the system</i>," and
+therefore unphilosophical in so far as it fails to explain the facts
+through their ultimate or deepest reasons.</p>
+
+<p>A large part of Loeb's book is devoted to a description of the author's
+remarkable experiments in artificial parthenogenesis, and an attempt to
+show that they offer a complete explanation. Sir William Tilden, one of
+the greatest living authorities on organic chemistry, tells us that "too
+much has been made of the curious observations of J. Loeb and others";
+and he definitely states that when we consider "the propagation of the
+animal races by the sexual process ... there can be no fear of
+contradiction in the statement that in the whole range of physical and
+chemical phenomena there is no ground for even a suggestion of an
+explanation." Behind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> this pronouncement of an expert, one might well
+shelter oneself; but the question under consideration merits a little
+further treatment. The reproduction of kind, though usually a bi-sexual
+process, may, however, normally in rare cases be uni-sexual, and this
+process is known as Parthenogenesis. Even in human beings certain
+tumours of the sex-glands, known as teratomata, very rare in women and
+even rarer, if ever existent, in men, have been claimed as examples of
+attempts at parthenogenesis, and so far no better explanation is
+available.</p>
+
+<p>Now Loeb and others have succeeded in certain forms&mdash;even in a
+vertebrate like the frog&mdash;in inducing development in unimpregnated ova.
+The evidence for all these things is still slender; but we will content
+ourselves with noting that point and passing on to the consideration of
+the phenomena and the claims put forward in connection with them. We
+find the task of unravelling the writer's meaning rendered more
+difficult by a certain confusion in his use of terms, since
+fertilisation, <i>i.e.</i> syngamy&mdash;the union of the different sex
+products&mdash;seems to be confused with segmentation, <i>i.e.</i> germination;
+and this confusion is accentuated by the claim that "the main effect of
+the spermatozoon in inducing the development of the egg consists in an
+alteration in the surface of the latter which is apparently of the
+nature of a cytolysis of the cortical layer. Anything that causes this
+alteration without endangering the rest of the egg may induce its
+development." When the spermatozoon enters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the ovum it causes some
+alteration in the surface membrane of the latter which, amongst other
+things, prevents the entrance of further spermatozoa. Loeb thinks that
+in causing this alteration it sets up the segmentation of the ovum. That
+there is a close connection between the two events seems undoubted; that
+they are in relation of cause and effect seems likely. It is quite
+evident that an artificial stimulus can in certain cases set up
+segmentation, but never can it cause the fertilisation of the ovum. It
+may very likely produce the same change in the membrane that is caused
+by the entrance of the spermatozoon under normal circumstances&mdash;membrane
+formation may be necessarily coincident with the liberation in the egg
+of some zymose which arises from a pre-existent zymogen. But we are
+still some way off any assurance that the <i>main</i> object of the
+spermatozoon in inducing the development of the egg is this surface
+alteration. It may be the initial effect; very probably it is; but since
+the main function of the spermatozoon must be the introduction of
+germplasm from the male parent, it is too much for anyone to ask us to
+believe that its <i>main</i> function is concerned with surface alteration.</p>
+
+<p>Loeb argues that the change in the surface membrane is of a chemical
+character, and that no doubt may be correct; but even if we allow him
+every scientific fact, or surmise, he is still, as in the other cases
+with which we have dealt, miles away from any real explanation. He is
+still inside his chemico-physical explanation to begin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> with; and, even
+within that, he still leaves us anxious for the explanation of a number
+of points&mdash;for example, as to the nature of the chemical process which
+accompanies, or is the cause of, segmentation. We in no way press these
+questions; for similar demands could be made in so many cases; we only
+indicate that they are there. What we do press is this&mdash;that when an
+authority comes forward to assure us that all the processes of life,
+including man's highest as well as his lowest attributes, can be
+explained on chemico-physical lines, we are entitled to ask for a more
+cogent proof of it than the demonstration, however complete, of the
+germination of an egg, caused by artificial stimulus and not by the
+ordinary method of syngamy, even though that germination may lead to the
+production of a perfect adult form. We are entitled to ask him to make
+clear to us not only what is happening <i>within his system</i>, but&mdash;which
+is far more important&mdash;what that system is, and how it came into
+existence. We are entitled to ask why the artificial stimulus, or the
+entry of the spermatozoon, produces the effects which it is claimed to
+produce instead of any one of some score of other effects which it might
+conceivably have produced. Above all we are entitled to ask why there
+are any effects, or even why there is any ovum or any spermatozoon or
+curious physiological investigator, to give the artificial stimulus.
+Until some light is thrown upon these things we are still within the
+system, or merely hovering round its confines, and are far away from any
+final or philo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>sophical explanation such as would satisfy the mind of
+the man who wants to get a real and not a partial knowledge of the
+things around him.</p>
+
+<p>We may now turn to the question of Vitalism. It was long the regnant
+theory; then temporarily the Cinderella of biology; it is now returning
+to its early position, though still denied by those of the older school
+of thought who cannot imagine the kitchen wench of yesterday the ruler
+of to-day. One of the objections to Vitalism is that this explanation of
+living things is thought by ignorant writers to be so inextricably mixed
+up with theological considerations as to furnish a case of <i>stantis aut
+cadentis ecclesiae</i>. That is, of course, absurd; but it creates an
+undoubted bias against the theory. Hence it is the fashion amongst its
+opponents to write of it as "mystical" or, as Loeb does, as
+"supernatural," probably the most illogical term that could possibly be
+used. What is Vitalism? It is the theory that there is some other
+element&mdash;call it entelechy with Driesch, or call it what you like&mdash;in
+living things than those elements known to chemistry and physics. If it
+is <i>not</i> there, <i>cadit quaestio</i>; if it <i>is</i> there it is not
+"supernatural." It might with reason be called "super-mechanical," or
+"super-chemical," or "super-physical"; but if it is in Nature, as it is
+held to be, it is not "supernatural" in any true sense of that word&mdash;no
+dictionary confines the term "Nature" to the operations of chemistry and
+physics.</p>
+
+<p>A good deal of the misconception existing on this point comes from pure
+ignorance of philo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>sophy, a subject with which writers of this school
+seldom have even a nodding acquaintance. "The idea of a quasi-superhuman
+intelligence presiding over the forces of the living is met with in the
+field of regeneration." Echoes of the Cartesian idea of the soul seem to
+ring in this statement; but it could not have been written by anyone who
+had mastered the Aristotelian or the Scholastic explanation of matter
+and form. But let us take this question of Regeneration; the power which
+all living things have, in some measure, though in very different
+measure, of reconstructing themselves when injured. It has been dealt
+with in a masterly manner by Driesch; and we may at once say that we do
+not think that Loeb has in any way contraverted his argument, nor even
+entered the first line of defence of that which is built up around what
+he calls by the somewhat forbidding name of "Harmonious-Equipotential
+System."</p>
+
+<p>Let us take one particular example, a very remarkable one, which has
+been cited by both writers&mdash;Wolff's experiment on the lens of the eye.
+The lens is just behind the pupil or central aperture in the iris or
+coloured ring at the front of the eye, and behind the cornea which is to
+the eye what a watch-glass is to a watch. If the lens of the eye be
+removed from a newt, as it is from human beings in the operation for
+cataract, the animal will grow another one. How does it do it? In
+certain cases a tiny fragment of the lens has been left behind after the
+operation, and the new one grows from that. This is sufficiently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+wonderful, but by no means so wonderful as what happens in other cases
+in which the entire lens has been removed and the new lens grows from
+the outer pigmented layer of the margin of the iris. To the unbiological
+reader one source of origin will not seem more wonderful than the other,
+but there is really a vast distinction between them. At an early stage
+in the development of the embryo, the cells composing it become
+divisible into three layers. It is even possible, as Loeb maintains,
+that this differentiation is present in the unsegmented ovum, in which
+case the facts to be detailed become still more remarkable and
+significant. These layers are known as epi-, meso-, and hypo-blast; and
+from each one of them arise certain portions of the body, and certain
+portions only. It would be as remarkable to a biologist to find these
+layers not breeding true as it would to a fowl-fancier to discover that
+the eggs of his Buff Orpingtons were producing young turkeys or ducks.
+Now the lens is an epiblastic structure, and the iris is mesoblastic.
+Hence the wonder with which we are filled when we find the iris growing
+a lens. Loeb attempts to explain this in the first instance by telling
+us that the cells of the iris cannot grow and develop as long as they
+are pigmented; that the operation wounds the iris, allows pigment to
+escape, and thus permits of proliferation. We may accept this, and yet
+ask why it takes on a form of growth familiar to us only in connection
+with epiblast? The reply is: "Young cells when put into the optic cup
+always become transparent, no matter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> what their origin; it looks as if
+this were due to a chemical influence, exercised by the optic cup or by
+the liquid it contains.</p>
+
+<p>"Lewis has shown that when the optic cup is transplanted into any other
+place under the epithelium of a larva of a frog the epithelium will
+always grow into the cup where the latter comes in contact with the
+epithelium; and that the ingrowing part will always become transparent."
+A most remarkable and interesting experiment; it has this very important
+limitation&mdash;that it is always <i>epithelium</i> with which it has to do,
+whereas in Wolff's experiment the regeneration takes place from
+mesoblastic tissue. The cause of the transparency may be a chemical
+reaction&mdash;it depends a good deal upon our definition of that phrase. Is
+protoplasm a chemical compound? Some have considered it so, and spoken
+of its marvellously complicated molecule. Of course it is made up of
+carbon, hydrogen, and other substances within the domain of chemistry.
+But is it, therefore, merely a chemical compound? The reply involves the
+whole riddle of Vitalism. The author would say that it, as well as all
+the living things to which it belongs, is purely and solely a chemical
+compound; and he must take the consequences of his belief. One of these
+consequences, from which doubtless he would not shrink, would be that a
+super-chemist (so to speak) could write him and his experiments and his
+book down in a series of chemical formul&aelig;&mdash;a consequence which takes a
+good deal of believing. But it also involves him in a belief in the
+rigidity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> of chemical reactions; and we are entitled to ask for an
+explanation of the identical behaviour of the chemical reaction in
+connection with epiblastic and mesoblastic cells&mdash;both pure chemical
+compounds <i>ex hypothesi</i> and, as far as we can tell from their normal
+behaviour, widely differing from one another. The optic cup, or its
+contained fluid, is one chemical compound; epithelium is another;
+mesoblast is a third. We want an explanation of the identical behaviour
+of the first with <i>either</i> of the two latter; and this should be borne
+in mind&mdash;that the reaction is not a mere matter of "clearing" of a
+tissue as the histologist would clear his section by oil-of-cloves or
+other reagent, but of the construction of a different type of
+cell&mdash;epithelial, not connective tissue.</p>
+
+<p>It certainly follows that there must be some superior, at least widely
+different, agency at work than one of a purely chemical
+character&mdash;something which transcends chemical operations. This is
+precisely what the Vitalist claims. No one will fail to award praise to
+any attempts to explain the phenomena of Nature, whether within or
+without any system. Loeb's book sets out to do a great deal more&mdash;to
+explain what it does not explain&mdash;the Organism as a Whole, and thus to
+give a philosophical explanation of man. It even claims to afford hints
+for a rule for his life, at least so we gather from the Preface, where,
+alluding to "that group of freethinkers, including d'Alembert, Diderot,
+Holbach and Voltaire," the author tells us that they "first dared to
+follow the consequences of a mechanistic science&mdash;incomplete as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> it then
+was&mdash;to the rules of human conduct, and thereby laid the foundation of
+that spirit of tolerance, justice, and gentleness which was the hope of
+our civilisation until it was buried under the wave of homicidal emotion
+which has swept through the world." On which it is surely reasonable to
+ask how a chemical reaction can learn so to alter itself as to exhibit
+"tolerance, justice, and gentleness," attributes which it had not
+previously possessed? Such claims of this and other writers, who would
+find in the laws of Nature as formulated to-day (forgetful that their
+formul&aelig; may to-morrow be cast into the furnace) a rule of life as well
+as a full explanation of the cosmos, resemble in their lack of base an
+inverted pyramid.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="IV_SCIENCE_IN_BONDAGE" id="IV_SCIENCE_IN_BONDAGE"></a>IV. SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE"</h2>
+
+
+<p>Amongst the numerous taunts which are cast at the Catholic Church there
+is none more frequently employed, nor, it may be added, more generally
+believed, nor more injurious to her reputation amongst outsiders&mdash;even
+with her own less-instructed children themselves at times&mdash;than the
+allegation which declares that where the Church has full sway, science
+cannot flourish, can scarcely in fact exist, and that the Church will
+only permit men of science to study and to teach as and while she
+permits.</p>
+
+<p>To give but one example of this attitude towards the Church, readers may
+be reminded that Huxley<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> called the Catholic Church "the vigorous
+enemy of the highest life of mankind," and rejoiced that evolution, "in
+addition to its truth, has the great merit of being in a position of
+irreconcilable antagonism to it." An utterly incorrect, even ignorant
+statement, by the way&mdash;but let that pass. The same writer, in a number
+of places, in season and out of season, as we may fairly say,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>
+proclaims his wholly erroneous view that there is "a necessary
+antagonism between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> science and Roman Catholic doctrine." We need not
+labour this point. It is sufficiently obvious, nor does it need any
+catena of authorities to establish the fact, that outside the Church,
+and even, as we have hinted above, amongst the less-instructed of her
+own children, there is a prevalent idea that the allegation with which
+this paper proposes to deal is a true bill.</p>
+
+<p>Those who give credit to the allegation must of course ignore certain
+very patent facts which are, it will be allowed, a little difficult to
+get over. They must commence by ignoring the historical fact that the
+greater number&mdash;almost all indeed&mdash;of the older Universities, places
+specially intended to foster and increase knowledge and research, owe
+their origin to Papal bulls. They must ignore the fact that vast numbers
+of scientific researches, often of fundamental importance, especially
+perhaps in the subjects of anatomy and physiology, emanated from learned
+men attached to seats of learning in Rome, and this during the Middle
+Ages, and that the learned men who were their authors quite frequently
+held official positions in the Papal Court. They must finally ignore the
+fact that a large number of the most distinguished scientific workers
+and discoverers in the past were also devout children of the Catholic
+Church. Stensen, "the Father of Geology" and a great anatomical
+discoverer as well, was a bishop; Mendel, whose name is so often heard
+nowadays in biological controversies, was an abbot. And what about
+Galvani, Volta, Pasteur, Schwann (the originator of the Cell Theory),
+van Beneden,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> Johannes M&uuml;ller, admitted by Huxley to be "the greatest
+anatomist and physiologist among my contemporaries"?<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> What about
+Kircher, Spallanzani, Secchi, de Lapparent, to take the names of persons
+of different historical periods, and connected with different subjects,
+yet all united in the bond of the Faith? To point to these men&mdash;and a
+host of other names might be cited&mdash;is to overthrow at once and finally
+the edifice of falsehood reared by enemies of the Church, who, before
+erecting it, might reasonably have been asked to look to the security of
+their foundations.</p>
+
+<p>Still there is the edifice, and as every edifice must rest on some kind
+of foundation or another, even if that foundation be nothing but sand,
+it may be useful and interesting to inquire, as I now propose to do,
+what foundation there is&mdash;if in fact there is any&mdash;for this particular
+allegation.</p>
+
+<p>We might commence by interrogating the persons who make it. The
+probability is that the reply which would at once be drawn from most of
+them would amount to this: "Everybody knows it to be true." If the
+interrogated person is amongst those less imperfectly informed we shall
+probably be referred to Huxley or to some other writer. Or we may even
+find ourselves confronted with that greater knowledge&mdash;or less
+inspissated ignorance&mdash;which babbles about Galileo, the Inquisition, the
+<i>Index</i>, and the <i>imprimatur</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Galileo and his case we shall consider later on,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> for he and it are
+really germane to the question with which we are dealing. The
+Inquisition has really nothing to do with the matter. The <i>Index</i> we
+also reserve for a later part of this essay. With the <i>imprimatur</i> we
+may now deal, since there is no doubt that there is a genuine
+misunderstanding on this subject on the part of some people who are
+misled perhaps through ignorance of Latin and quite certainly through
+ignorance of what the whole matter amounts to. Let us begin by reminding
+ourselves that, though the unchanging Church is now, so far as I am
+aware, the only body which issues an <i>imprimatur</i>, there were other
+instances of the exercise of such a privilege even in recent or
+comparatively recent days. There were Royal licences to print with which
+we need not concern ourselves. But, what is important, there was a time
+when the scientific authority of the day assumed the right of issuing an
+<i>imprimatur</i>. I take the first book which occurs to me, Tyson's
+<i>Anatomie of a Pygmie</i>, and for the sake of those who are not acquainted
+with it, I may add that this book is not only the foundation-stone of
+Comparative Anatomy, but also, through its appendix <i>A Philological
+Essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges
+of the Ancients</i>, the foundation-stone of all folk-lore study. On the
+page fronting the title of this work the following appears:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="citation"><i>17 Die Maij, 1699.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang sive Homo
+Sylvestris, etc. Authore Edvardo Tyson, M.D., R.S.S.</i></p>
+
+<p class="citation"><i>John Hoskins, V.P.R.S.</i></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What does this mean? In the first place it shows, what all instructed
+persons know, that the Royal Society did then exercise the privilege of
+giving an <i>imprimatur</i> at any rate to books written by its own Fellows.
+It cannot be supposed that such <i>imprimatur</i> guaranteed the accuracy of
+all the statements made by Tyson, for we may feel sure that John Hoskins
+was quite unable to give any such assurance. We must assume that it
+meant that there was nothing in the book which would reflect discredit
+upon the Society of which Tyson was a Fellow and from which the
+<i>imprimatur</i> was obtained.</p>
+
+<p>However this may be, the sway over its Fellows' publications was
+exercised, and indeed very excellent arguments might be adduced for the
+reassumption of such a sway even to-day.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>Though the <i>imprimatur</i> in question has fallen into desuetude, it is, as
+we all know, the commonest of things for the introductions to works of
+science to occupy some often considerable part of their space with
+acknowledgments of assistance given by learned friends who have read the
+manuscript or the proofs and made suggestions with the object of
+improving the book or adding to its accuracy. Any person who has written
+a book can feel nothing but gratitude towards those who have helped him
+to avoid the errors and slips to which even the most careful are
+subject.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So that such acknowledgments of assistance have come to be almost what
+the lawyers call "common form." What they really amount to is a
+proclamation on the part of the author that he has done his best to
+ensure that his book is free from mistakes. Now the <i>imprimatur</i> really
+amounts to the same thing, for it is, of course, confined to books or
+parts of books where theology or philosophy trenching upon theology is
+concerned. Thus a book may deal largely, perhaps mainly, with scientific
+points, yet necessarily include allusions to theological dogmas. The
+<i>imprimatur</i> to such a book would relate solely and entirely to the
+theological parts, just as the advice of an architectural authority on a
+point connected with that subject in a work in which it was mentioned
+only in an incidental manner, would refer to that point, and to nothing
+else. Perhaps it should be added, that no author is obliged to obtain an
+<i>imprimatur</i> any more than he is compelled to seek advice on any other
+point in connection with his book. "<i>Nihil Obstat</i>," says the skilled
+referee: "I see no reason to suppose that there is anything in all this
+which contravenes theological principles." To which the authority
+appealed to adds "<i>imprimatur</i>:" "Then by all means let it be printed."
+The procedure is no doubt somewhat more stately and formal than the
+modern system of acknowledgments, yet in actual practice there is but
+little to differentiate the two methods of ensuring, so far as is
+possible, that the work is free from mistakes. That neither the
+assistance of friends nor the <i>imprimatur</i> of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> authorities is infallible
+is proved by the facts that mistakes do creep into works of science,
+however carefully examined, and that more than one book with an
+<i>imprimatur</i> has, none the less, found its way on to the <i>Index</i>. Before
+leaving this branch of the subject one cannot refrain from calling
+attention to another point. How often in advertisements of books do we
+not see quotations from reviews in authoritative journals&mdash;a medical
+work from the <i>Lancet</i>, a physical or chemical from <i>Nature</i>? Frequently
+too we see "Mr. So-and-So, the well-known authority on the subject, says
+of this book, etc., etc." What are all these authoritative commendations
+but an <i>imprimatur</i> up to date?</p>
+
+<p>Passing from the <i>imprimatur</i> to a closer consideration of our subject,
+it is above all things necessary to take the advice of Samuel Johnson
+and clear our minds of cant. Every person in this world&mdash;save perhaps a
+Robinson Crusoe on an otherwise uninhabited island, and he only because
+of his solitary condition&mdash;is in bondage more or less to others; that is
+to say, has his freedom more or less interfered with. That this
+interference is in the interests of the community and so, in the last
+analysis, in the interests of the person interfered with himself, in no
+way weakens the argument; it is rather a potent adjuvant to it. However
+much I may dislike him and however anxious I may be to injure him, I may
+not go out and set fire to my neighbour's house nor to his rick-yard,
+unless I am prepared to risk the serious legal penalties which will be
+my lot if I am detected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> in the act. I may not, if I am a small and
+active boy, make a slide in the public street in frosty weather, unless
+I am prepared&mdash;as the small boy usually is&mdash;to run the gauntlet of the
+police. In a thousand ways my freedom, or what I call my freedom, is
+interfered with: it is the price which I pay for being one item of a
+social organism and for being in turn protected against others, who, in
+virtue of that protection, are in their turn deprived of what they might
+call their liberty.</p>
+
+<p>No one can have failed to observe that this interference with personal
+liberty becomes greater day by day. It is a tendency of modern
+governments, based presumably upon increased experience, to increase
+these protective regulations. Thus we have laws against adulteration of
+food, against the placing of buildings concerned with obnoxious trades
+in positions where people will be inconvenienced by them. We make
+persons suffering from infectious diseases isolate themselves, and if
+they cannot do this at home, we make them go to the fever hospital.
+Further, we insist upon the doctor, whose position resembles that of a
+confessor, breaking his obligation of professional secrecy and informing
+the authorities as to the illness of his patient. We interfere with the
+liberty of men and women to work as long as they like or to make their
+children labour for excessive hours. We insist upon dangerous machinery
+being fenced in. In a thousand ways we&mdash;the State&mdash;interfere with the
+liberty of our fellows. Finally, when the needs of the community are
+most pressing we interfere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> most with the freedom of the subject. Thus,
+in these islands, we were recently living under a Defence of the Realm
+Act&mdash;with which no reasonable person quarrelled. Yet it forbad many
+things not only harmless in themselves but habitually permitted in times
+of peace. We were subject to penalties if we showed lighted windows:
+they must be shuttered or provided with heavy curtains. We might not
+travel in railway carriages at night with the blinds undrawn. The papers
+might not publish, nor we say in public, things which in time of peace
+would go unnoticed. There were a host of other matters to which allusion
+need not be made. Enough has been said to show that the State has and
+exerts the right to control the actions of those who belong to it, and
+that in time of stress it can and does very greatly intensify that
+control and does so without arousing any real or widespread discontent.
+Of course we all grumble, but then everybody, except its own members,
+always does more or less grumble at anything done by any government:
+that is the ordinary state of affairs. But at any rate we submit
+ourselves, more or less gracefully, to this restraint because we
+persuade ourselves or are persuaded that it is for the good of the State
+and thus for the good of ourselves, both as private individuals and as
+members of the State.</p>
+
+<p>And many of us, at any rate, comfort ourselves with the thought that a
+great many of the regulations which appear to be most tyrannical and
+most to interfere with the natural liberty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> mankind are devised not
+with that end in view but with the righteous intention of protecting
+those weaker members of the body who are unable to protect themselves.
+If the State does not stand by such members and offer itself as their
+shield and support, it has no claim to our obedience, no real right to
+exist, and so we put up with the inconvenience, should such arise, on
+account of the protection given to the weaker members and often extended
+to those who would by no means feel pleased if they heard themselves
+thus described.</p>
+
+<p>Let us substitute the Church for the State and let us remember that
+there are times when she is at closer grips with the powers of evil than
+may be the case at other times. The parallel is surely sufficiently
+close.</p>
+
+<p>So far as earthly laws can control one, no one is obliged to be a member
+of the Catholic Church nor a citizen of the British Empire. I can, if I
+choose, emigrate to America, in process of time naturalise myself there
+and join the Christian Science organisation or any other body to which I
+find myself attracted. But as long as I remain a Catholic and a British
+citizen I must submit myself to the restrictions imposed by the bodies
+with which I have elected to connect myself. We arrive at the conclusion
+then that the ordinary citizen, even if he never adverts to the fact, is
+in reality controlled and his liberty limited in all sorts of
+directions.</p>
+
+<p>Now the scientific man, in his own work, is subject to all sorts of
+limitations, apart altogether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> from the limitations to which, as an
+ordinary member of the State, he has to submit himself.</p>
+
+<p>He is restricted by science: he is not completely free but is bound by
+knowledge&mdash;the knowledge which he or others have acquired.</p>
+
+<p>To say he is limited by it is not to say that he is imprisoned by it or
+in bondage to it. "One does not lose one's intellectual liberty when one
+learns mathematics," says the late Monsignor Benson in one of his
+letters, "though one certainly loses the liberty of doing sums wrong or
+doing them by laborious methods!"</p>
+
+<p>Before setting out upon any research, the careful man of science sets
+himself to study "the literature of the subject" as he calls it. He
+delves into all sorts of out-of-the-way periodicals to ascertain what
+such a man has written upon such a point. All this he does in order that
+he may avoid doing a piece of work over again unnecessarily:
+<i>unnecessarily</i>, for it maybe actually necessary to repeat it, if it is
+of very great importance and if it has not been repeated and verified by
+other observers. Further, he delves into this literature because it is
+thus that he hopes to avoid the many blind alleys which branch off from
+every path of research, delude their explorer with vain hopes and
+finally bring him face to face with a blank wall. In a word the inquirer
+consults his authorities and when he finds them worthy of reliance, he
+limits his freedom by paying attention to them. He does not say: "How am
+I held in bondage by this assertion that the earth goes round the sun,"
+but accepting that fact, he rejects such of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> conclusions as are
+obviously irreconcilable with it. Surely this is plain common sense and
+the man who acted otherwise would be setting himself a quite impossible
+task. It is the weakness of the "heuristic method" that it sets its
+pupils to find out things which many abler men have spent years in
+investigating. The man who sets out to make a research, without first
+ascertaining what others have done in that direction, proposes to
+accumulate in himself the abilities and the life-work of all previous
+generations of labourers in that corner of the scientific vineyard.</p>
+
+<p>There is a somewhat amusing and certainly interesting instance of this
+which will bear quotation. The late Mr. Grant Allen, who knew something
+of quite a number of subjects though perhaps not very much about any of
+them, devoted most of his time and energies (outside his stories, some
+of which are quite entertaining) to not always very accurate essays in
+natural history. One day, however, his evil genius prompted him to write
+and, worse still, to publish a book entitled <i>Force and Energy: A Theory
+of Dynamics</i>, in which he purported to deal with a matter of which he
+knew far less even than he did about animated nature. Mark the
+inevitable result! A copy of the book was forwarded to the journal
+<i>Nature</i>, and sent by its editor to be dealt with by the competent hands
+of Sir Oliver (then Professor) Lodge.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>This is how that eminent authority dealt with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> it. "There exists a
+certain class of mind," he commences, "allied perhaps to the Greek
+sophist variety, to which ignorance of a subject offers no sufficient
+obstacle to the composition of a treatise upon it." It may be rash to
+suggest that this type of mind is well developed in philosophers of the
+Spencerian school, though it would be possible to adduce some evidence
+in support of such a suggestion. "In the volume before us," he
+continues, "Mr. Grant Allen sets to work to reconstruct the fundamental
+science of dynamics, an edifice which, since the time of Galileo and
+Newton, has been standing on what has seemed a fairly secure and
+substantial basis, but which he seems to think it is now time to
+demolish in order to make room for a newly excogitated theory. The
+attempt is audacious and the result&mdash;what might have been expected. The
+performance lends itself indeed to the most scathing criticism; blunders
+and misstatements abound on nearly every page, and the whole thing is
+simply an emanation of mental fog." It would occupy too much space to
+reproduce this criticism with any fullness, but one or two points
+exceedingly germane to our subject can hardly go without notice.
+Alluding to a certain question, which seems to have greatly bothered Mr.
+Allen and likewise Mr. Clodd, who, it would appear, was associated with
+him in this performance, the reviewer says: "The puzzle was solved
+completely long ago, in the clearest possible manner, and the
+'<i>Principia</i>' is the witness to it; but it is still felt to be a
+difficulty by be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>ginners, and I suppose there is no offence in applying
+this harmless epithet to both Mr. Grant Allen and Mr. Clodd, so far as
+the truths of dynamics and physics are concerned." One last quotation:
+"The thing which strikes one most forcibly about the physics of these
+paper philosophers is the extraordinary contempt which, if they are
+consistent, they must or ought to feel for men of science. If Newton,
+Lagrange, Gauss, and Thompson, to say nothing of smaller men, have
+muddled away their brains in concocting a scheme of dynamics wherein the
+very definitions are all wrong; if they have arrived at a law of
+conservation of energy without knowing what the word energy means, or
+how to define it; if they have to be set right by an amateur who has
+devoted a few weeks or months to the subject and acquired a rude
+smattering of some of its terms, 'what intolerable fools they must all
+be!'" Such is the result of asserting one's freedom by escaping the
+limitations of knowledge! We see what happens when a person sets out to
+deal with science untrammelled by any considerations as to what others
+have thought and established. The necessary result is that he plunges
+headforemost into all or most of the errors which were pitfalls to the
+first labourers in the field. Or, again, he painfully and uselessly
+pursues the blind alleys which they had wandered in, and from which a
+perusal of their works would have warned off later comers.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, irony of fate! the same thing precisely happens when men of
+scientific eminence indulge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> in religious dissertations, for of course,
+though it is not quite so obvious to such writers, the same blunder is
+quite possible in non-scientific fields of knowledge. I once asked one
+versed in theology what he thought of the religious articles of a
+distinguished man, unfamiliar himself with theology, yet, none the less,
+then splashing freely and to the great admiration of the ignorant, in
+the theological pool. His reply was that in so far as they were at all
+constructive, they consisted mostly of exploded heresies of the first
+century. Is not this precisely what one would have expected <i>a priori</i>?
+A man commencing to write on science or religion who neglects the work
+of earlier writers places himself in the position of the first students
+of the subject and very naturally will make the same mistakes as they
+made. He refuses to be hampered and biased by knowledge, and the result
+follows quite inevitably. "A scientist," says Monsignor Benson, "is
+hampered and biased by knowing the earth goes round the sun." The fact
+of the matter is that the man of science is not a solitary figure, a
+<i>chim&aelig;ra bombinans in vacuo</i>. In whatever direction he looks he is faced
+by the figures of other workers and he is limited and "hampered" by
+their work. Nor are these workers all of them in his own area of
+country, for the biologist, for example, cannot afford to neglect the
+doings of the chemist; if he does he is bound to find himself led into
+mistakes. No doubt the scientific man is at times needlessly hampered by
+theories which he and others at the time take to be fairly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> well
+established facts, but which after all turn out to be nothing of the
+kind. This in no way weakens the argument, but rather by giving an
+additional reason for caution, strengthens it.</p>
+
+<p>If we carefully consider the matter we shall be unable to come to any
+other conclusion than that every writer, even of the wildest form of
+fiction, is in some way and to some extent hampered and limited by
+knowledge, by facts, by things as they are or as they appear to be. That
+will be admitted; but it will be urged that the hampering and limiting
+with which we have been dealing is not merely legitimate but inevitable,
+whereas the hampering and limiting&mdash;should such there be&mdash;on the part of
+the Church is wholly illegitimate and indefensible.</p>
+
+<p>"All that you say is no doubt true," our antagonist will urge, "but you
+have still to show that your Church has any right or title to interfere
+in these matters. And even if you can make some sort of case for her
+interference, you have still to disprove what so many people believe,
+namely, that the right, real or assumed, has not been arbitrarily used
+to the damage, or at least to the delay of scientific progress.
+Chemistry," we may suppose our antagonist continuing, "no doubt has a
+legitimate right to have its say, even to interfere and that
+imperatively, where chemical considerations invade the field of biology,
+for example. But what similar right does religion possess? For
+instance," he might proceed, "some few years ago a distinguished
+physiologist, then occupying the Chair of the British Associa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>tion,
+invoked the behaviour of certain chemical substances known as colloids
+in favour of his anti-vitalistic conclusions. At once he was answered by
+a number of equally eminent chemists that the attitude he had adopted
+was quite incompatible with facts as known to them; in a word, that
+chemistry disagreed with his ideas as to colloids. Everybody admitted
+that the chemists must have the final word on this subject: are you now
+claiming that religion or theology, or whatever you choose to call it,
+is also entitled to a say in a matter of that kind?" This supposititious
+conversation illustrates the confusion which exists in many minds as to
+the point at issue. One science is entitled to contradict another, just
+as one scientific man is entitled to contradict another on a question of
+fact. But on a question of <i>fact</i> a theologian is not entitled&mdash;<i>qu&acirc;</i>
+theologian&mdash;nor would he be expected to claim to be entitled, to
+contradict a man of science.</p>
+
+<p>It ought to be widely known, though it is not, that the idea that
+theologians can or wish to intrude&mdash;again <i>qu&acirc;</i> theologians&mdash;in
+scientific disputes as to chemical, biological, or other facts, is a
+fantastic idea without real foundation save that of the one mistake of
+the kind made in the case of Galileo and never repeated&mdash;a mistake, let
+us hasten to add, made by a disciplinary authority and&mdash;as all parties
+admit&mdash;in no way involving questions of infallibility. To this case we
+will revert shortly. Meanwhile it may be briefly stated that the claim
+made by the Church is in connection with some few&mdash;some very few&mdash;of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+the <i>theories</i> which men of science build up upon the facts which they
+have brought to light. Some of these theories do appear to contradict
+theological dogmas, or at least may seem to simple people to be
+incompatible with such dogmas, just as the people of his
+time&mdash;Protestants by the way, no less than Catholics&mdash;did really think
+that Galileo's theory conflicted with Holy Writ. In such cases, and in
+such cases alone, the Church holds that she has at least the right to
+say that such a theory should not be proclaimed to be true until there
+is sufficient proof for it to satisfy the scientific world that the
+point has been demonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>This is really what is meant by the tyranny of the Church; and it may
+now be useful to consider briefly what can be said for her position. We
+must begin by looking at the matter from the Church's standpoint. It is
+a good rule to endeavour to understand your opponent's position before
+you try to confute him; an excellent rule seldom complied with by
+anti-Catholic controversialists. Now the Church starts with the
+proposition that man has an immortal soul destined to eternal happiness
+or eternal misery, and she proceeds to claim that she has been divinely
+constituted to help man to enjoy a future of happiness. Of course these
+are opinions which all do not share, and with the arguments for and
+against which we cannot here deal. If a man is quite sure that he has no
+soul and that there is no hereafter there is nothing more to be said
+than: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> we die." Nothing very much
+matters in this world except that we should make ourselves as
+comfortable as we can during the few years we have to spend in it.</p>
+
+<p>Again, there are others who, whilst believing the first doctrine set
+down above, will have none of the other. With them we enter into no
+argument here, and only say that to have a guide is better than to have
+no guide. Catholics, who accept gratefully her guidance, do believe that
+the Church can help a man to save his soul, and that she is entrusted,
+to that end, with certain powers. Her duty is to preserve and guard the
+Christian Revelation&mdash;the scheme of doctrine regarding belief and
+conduct by which Jesus Christ taught that souls were to be saved. She is
+not an arbitrary ruler. Her office is primarily that of Judge and
+Interpreter of the deposit of doctrine entrusted to her.</p>
+
+<p>In this she claims to be safeguarded against error, though her
+infallible utterances would seem incredibly few, if summed up and
+presented to the more ignorant of her critics. She also claims to derive
+from her Founder legislative power by which she can make decrees, unmake
+them or modify and vary them to suit different times and circumstances.
+She rightfully claims the obedience of her children to this exercise of
+her authority, but such disciplinary enactments, by their very nature
+variable and modifiable, do not and cannot come within the province of
+her infallibility, and admittedly they need not be always perfectly wise
+or judicious. Such dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>ciplinary utterances, it may be added, at least
+in the field of which we are treating, indeed in any field, are also
+incredibly few when due regard is had to the enormous number of cases
+passing under the Church's observation.</p>
+
+<p>We saw just now that the State exercised a very large jurisdiction for
+the purpose of protecting the weak who were unable or little able to
+protect themselves. It is really important to remember, when we are
+considering the powers of the Church and her exercise of them, that
+these disciplinary powers are put in operation, not from mere arrogance
+or an arbitrary love of domination&mdash;as too many suppose&mdash;but with the
+primary intention of protecting and helping the weaker members of the
+flock. If the Church consisted entirely of theological experts a good
+deal of this exercise of disciplinary power might very likely be
+regarded as wholly unnecessary. Thus the Church freely concedes not only
+to priests and theologians, but to other persons adequately instructed
+in her teaching, full permission to read books which she has placed on
+her black list or <i>Index</i>&mdash;from which, in other words, she has warned
+off the weaker members of the flock.</p>
+
+<p>The net of Peter, however, as all very well know, contains a very great
+variety of fish, and&mdash;to vary the metaphor&mdash;to the fisherman was given
+charge not only of the sheep&mdash;foolish enough, heaven knows!&mdash;but also of
+the still more helpless lambs. Thus it becomes the duty and the
+privilege of the successors of the fisherman to protect the sheep and
+the lambs, and not merely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> to protect them from wild beasts who may try
+to do harm from without, but quite as much from the wild rams of the
+flock who are capable of doing a great deal of injury from within. In
+one of his letters, from which quotation has already been made, the late
+Monsignor Benson sums up, in homely, but vivid language, the point with
+which we have just been dealing. "Here are the lambs of Christ's flock,"
+he writes: "Is a stout old ram to upset and confuse them when he needn't
+... even though he is right? The flock must be led gently and turned in
+a great curve. We can't all whip round in an instant. We are tired and
+discouraged and some of us are exceedingly stupid and obstinate. Very
+well; then the rams can't be allowed to make brilliant excursions in all
+directions and upset us all. We shall get there some day, if we are
+treated patiently. We are Christ's lambs after all."</p>
+
+<p>The protection of the weak: surely, if it be deemed both just and wise
+on the part of the civil government to protect its subjects by
+legislation in regard to adulterated goods, contagious diseases,
+unhealthy workshops and dangerous machinery, why may not the Church
+safeguard her children, especially her weaker children, the special
+object of her care and solicitude, from noxious intellectual foods?</p>
+
+<p>It is just here that the question of the <i>Index</i> arises. Put briefly,
+this is a list of books which are not to be read by Catholics unless
+they have permission to read them&mdash;a permission which, as we have just
+seen, is never refused when any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> good reason can be given for the
+request. I can understand the kind of person who says: "Exactly, locking
+up the truth; why not let everybody read just what they like?" To which
+I would reply that every careful parent has an <i>Index Prohibitorius</i> for
+his household; or ought to have one if he has not. I once knew a woman
+who allowed her daughter to plunge into <i>Nana</i> and other works of that
+character as soon as she could summon up enough knowledge of French to
+fathom their meaning. The daughter grew up and the result has not been
+encouraging to educationists thinking of proceeding on similar lines.
+The State also has its <i>Index Prohibitorius</i> and will not permit
+indecent books nor indecent pictures to be sold. Enough: let us again
+clear our minds of cant. There is a limit with regard to publications in
+every decent State and every decent house: it is only a question where
+the line is drawn. It is obvious that the Church must be permitted at
+least as much privilege in this matter as is claimed by every
+respectable father of a family.</p>
+
+<p>We need not pursue the question of the <i>Index</i> any further, but before
+we leave it let us for a moment turn to another accusation levelled
+against Catholic men of science by anti-Catholic writers, that of
+concealing their real opinions on scientific matters, and even of
+professing views which they do not really hold, out of a craven fear of
+ecclesiastical denunciations. The attitude which permits of such an
+accusation is hardly courteous, but, stripped of its verbiage, that is
+the accusation as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> it is made. Now, as there are usually at least some
+smouldering embers of fire where there is smoke, there is just one small
+item of truth behind all this pother. No Catholic, scientific man or
+otherwise, who really honours his Faith would desire wilfully to advance
+theories apparently hostile to its teaching. Further, even if he were
+convinced of the truth of facts which might appear&mdash;it could only be
+"appear"&mdash;to conflict with that teaching, he would, in expounding them,
+either show how they could be harmonised with his religion, or, if he
+were wise, would treat his facts from a severely scientific point of
+view and leave other considerations to the theologians trained in
+directions almost invariably unexplored by scientific men. Perhaps the
+memory of old, far-off, unhappy events should not be recalled, but it is
+pertinent to remark that the troubles in connection with a man whose
+name once stood for all that was stalwart in Catholicism, did not
+originate in, nor were they connected with, any of the scientific books
+and papers of which the late Professor Mivart was the author, but with
+those theological essays which all his friends must regret that he
+should ever have written.</p>
+
+<p>It may not be waste of time briefly to consider two of the instances
+commonly brought up as examples when the allegation with which we are
+dealing is under consideration.</p>
+
+<p>First of all let us consider the case of Gabriel Fallopius, who
+lived&mdash;it is very important to note the date&mdash;1523-1562; a Catholic and
+a churchman. Now it is gravely asserted that Fallopius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> committed
+himself to misleading views, views which he knew to be misleading,
+because he thought that he was thereby serving the interest of the
+Church. What he said concerned fossils, then beginning to puzzle the
+scientific world of the day. Confronted with these objects and living,
+as he did, in an unscientific age, when the seven days of creation were
+interpreted as periods of twenty-four hours each and the universality of
+the Noachian deluge was accepted by everybody, it would have been
+something like a miracle if he had at once fathomed the true meaning of
+the shark's teeth, elephant's bones, and other fossil remains which came
+under his notice. His idea was that all these things were mere
+concretions "generated by fermentation in the spots where they were
+found," as he very quaintly and even absurdly put it. The accusation,
+however, is not that Fallopius made a mistake&mdash;as many another man has
+done&mdash;but that he deliberately expressed an opinion which he did not
+hold and did so from religious motives. Of course, this includes the
+idea that he knew what the real explanation was, for had he not known
+it, he could not have been guilty of making a false statement. There is
+no evidence whatever that Fallopius ever had so much as a suspicion of
+the real explanation, nor, it may be added, had any other man of science
+for the century which followed his death.</p>
+
+<p>Then there arose another Catholic churchman, Nicolaus Stensen
+(1631-1686), who, by the way, ended his days as a bishop, who did solve
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> riddle, giving the answer which we accept to-day as correct, and on
+whom was conferred by his brethren two hundred years later the title of
+"The Father of Geology." It is a little difficult to understand how the
+"unchanging Church" should have welcomed, or at least in no way objected
+to, Stensen's views when the mere entertainment of them by Fallopius is
+supposed to have terrified him into silence. But when the story of
+Fallopius is mistold, as indicated above, it need hardly be said that
+the story of Stensen is never so much as alluded to.</p>
+
+<p>The real facts of the case are these: Fallopius was one of the most
+distinguished men of science of his day. Every medical student becomes
+acquainted with his name because it is attached to two parts of the
+human body which he first described. He made a mistake about fossils,
+and that is the plain truth&mdash;as we now know, a most absurd mistake, but
+that is all. As we hinted above, he is very far from being the only
+scientific man who has made a mistake. Huxley had a very bad fall over
+<i>Bathybius</i> and was man enough to admit that he was wrong. Curiously
+enough, what Huxley thought a living thing really was a concretion, just
+as what Fallopius thought a concretion had been a living thing.</p>
+
+<p>Another extremely curious fact is that another distinguished man of
+science, who lived three hundred years later than Fallopius and had all
+the knowledge which had accumulated during that prolific period to
+assist him, the late Philip Gosse, fell into the same pit as Fallopius.
+As his son<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> tells us, he wrote a book to prove that when the sudden act
+of creation took place the world came into existence so constructed as
+to bear the appearance of a place which had for &aelig;ons been inhabited by
+living things, or, as some of his critics unkindly put it, "that God hid
+the fossils in the rocks in order to tempt geologists into infidelity."
+Gosse had the real answer under his eyes which Fallopius had not, for
+the riddle was unread in the latter's days. Yet Gosse's really
+unpardonable mistake was attributed to himself alone, and "Plymouth
+Brethrenism," which was the sect to which he belonged, was not saddled
+with it, nor have the Brethren been called obscurantists because of it.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there is a second string to the accusation we are dealing
+with. If the scientific man did really express new and perhaps startling
+opinions, they would have been much newer and much more startling had he
+not held himself in for fear of the Church and said only about half of
+what he might have said. It is the half instead of the whole loaf of the
+former accusation. Thus, in its notice of Stensen, the current issue of
+the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica</i> says: "Cautiously at first, for fear of
+offending orthodox opinion, but afterwards more boldly, he proclaimed
+his opinion that these objects (<i>viz.</i> fossils) had once been parts of
+living animals."</p>
+
+<p>One may feel quite certain that if Stensen had not been a Catholic
+ecclesiastic this notice would have run&mdash;and far more
+truthfully&mdash;"Cautiously at first, until he felt that the facts at his
+disposal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> made his position quite secure, and then more boldly, etc.
+etc."</p>
+
+<p>What in the ordinary man of science is caution, becomes cowardice in the
+Catholic. We shall find another example of this in the case of Buffon
+(1707-1788) often cited as that of a man who believed all that Darwin
+believed and one hundred years before Darwin, and who yet was afraid to
+say it because of the Church to which he belonged. This mistake is
+partly due to that lamentable ignorance of Catholic teaching, not to say
+that lamentable incapacity for clear thinking, on these matters, which
+afflicts some non-Catholic writers. Let us take an example from an
+eminently fairly written book, in which, dealing with Buffon, the author
+says: "I cannot agree with those who think that Buffon was an
+out-and-out evolutionist, who concealed his opinions for fear of the
+Church. No doubt he did trim his sails&mdash;the palpably insincere <i>Mais
+non, il est certain par la r&eacute;v&eacute;lation que tous les animaux ont &eacute;galement
+particip&eacute; &agrave; la gr&acirc;ce de la cr&eacute;ation</i>, following hard upon the too bold
+hypothesis of the origin of all species from a single one, is proof of
+it." Of course it is nothing of the kind, for, whatever Buffon may have
+meant, and none but himself could tell us, it is perfectly clear that
+whether creation was mediate (as under transformism considered from a
+Christian point of view it would be) or immediate, every created thing
+would participate in the grace of creation, which is just the point
+which the writer from whom the quotation has been made has missed.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The same writer furnishes us with the real explanation of Buffon's
+attitude when he says that Buffon was "too sane and matter-of-fact a
+thinker to go much beyond his facts, and his evolution doctrine remained
+always tentative." Buffon, like many another man, from St. Augustine
+down to his own times, considered the transformist explanation of living
+nature. He saw that it unified and simplified the conceptions of species
+and that there were certain facts which seemed strongly to support it.
+But he does not seem to have thought that they were sufficient to
+establish it and he puts forward his views in the tentative manner which
+has just been suggested.</p>
+
+<p>The fact is that those who father the accusations with which we have
+been dealing either do not know, or scrupulously conceal their
+knowledge, that what they proclaim to be scientific cowardice is really
+scientific caution, a thing to be lauded and not to be decried.</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn to apply the considerations with which we have been
+concerned to the case of Galileo, to which generally misunderstood
+affair we must very briefly allude, since it is the standby of
+anti-Catholic controversialists. Monsignor Benson, in connection with
+the quotation recently cited, proclaimed himself "a violent defender of
+the Cardinals against Galileo." Perhaps no one will be surprised at his
+attitude, but those who are not familiar with his <i>Life and Letters</i>
+will certainly be surprised to learn that Huxley, after examining into
+the question, "arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> the College
+of Cardinals had rather the best of it."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>None the less it is the stock argument. Father Hull, S. J., whose
+admirable, outspoken, and impartial study of the case<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> should be on
+everybody's bookshelves, freely admits that the Roman Congregations made
+a mistake in this matter and thus takes up a less favourable position
+towards them than even the violently anti-Catholic Huxley.</p>
+
+<p>No one will deny that the action of the Congregation was due to a desire
+to prevent simple persons from having their faith upset by a theory
+which seemed at the time to contradict the teaching of the Bible.
+Remember that it was only a theory and that, when it was put forward,
+and indeed for many years afterwards, it was not only a theory, but one
+supported by no sufficient evidence. It was not in fact until many years
+after Galileo's death that final and convincing evidence as to the
+accuracy of his views was laid before the scientific world. There can be
+but little doubt that if Galileo had been content to discuss his theory
+with other men of science, and not to lay it down as a matter of proved
+fact&mdash;which, as we have seen, it was not&mdash;he would never have been
+condemned. Whilst we may admit, with Father Hull, that a mistake was
+made in this case, we may urge, with Cardinal Newman, that it is the
+only case in which such a thing has happened&mdash;surely a remarkable fact.
+It is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> for want of opportunities. Father Hull very properly cites
+various cases where a like difficulty might possibly have arisen, but
+where, as a matter of fact, it has not. For example, the geographical
+universality of the Deluge was at one time, and that not so very long
+ago, believed to be asserted by the Bible; while, on the other hand,
+geologists seemed to be able to show, and in the event did show, that
+such a view was scientifically untenable. The attention of theologians
+having been called to this matter, and a further study made of passages
+which until then had probably attracted but little notice, and quite
+certainly had never been considered from the new point of view, it
+became obvious that the meaning which had been attached to the passages
+in question was not the necessary meaning, but on the contrary, a
+strained interpretation of the words. No public fuss having arisen about
+this particular difficulty, the whole matter was gradually and quietly
+disposed of. As Father Hull says, "the new view gradually filtered down
+from learned circles to the man in the street, so that nowadays the
+partiality of the Deluge is a matter of commonplace knowledge among all
+educated Christians, and is even taught to the rising generation in
+elementary schools."</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with the wise provisions of the Encyclical
+<i>Providentissimus Deus</i>, with which all educated Catholics should make
+themselves familiar, conflicts have been avoided on this, and on other
+points, such as the general theory of evolution and the various problems
+connected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> with it; the antiquity of man upon the earth and other
+matters as to which science is still uncertain. Some of these points
+might seem to conflict with the Bible and the teachings of the Church.
+As Catholics we can rest assured that the true explanation, whenever it
+emerges, cannot be opposed to the considered teaching of the Church.
+What the Church does&mdash;and surely it must be clear that from her
+standpoint she could not do less&mdash;is to instruct Catholic men of science
+not to proclaim <i>as proved facts</i> such modern theories&mdash;and there are
+many of them&mdash;as still remain wholly unproved, when these theories are
+such as might seem to conflict with the teaching of the Church. This is
+very far from saying that Catholics are forbidden to study such
+theories.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, they are encouraged to do so, and that, need it be
+said, with the one idea of ascertaining the truth? Men of science,
+Catholic and otherwise, have, as a mere matter of fact, been time and
+again encouraged by Popes and other ecclesiastical authorities to go on
+searching for the truth, never, however, neglecting the wise maxim that
+all things must be proved. So long as a theory is unproved, it must be
+candidly admitted that it is a crime against science to proclaim it to
+be incontrovertible truth, yet this crime is being committed every day.
+It is really against it that the <i>magisterium</i> of the Church is
+exercised. The wholesome discipline which she exercises might also be
+exercised to the great benefit of the ordinary reading public by some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+central scientific authority, can such be imagined, endowed with the
+right to say (and in any way likely to be listened to): "Such and such a
+statement is interesting&mdash;even extremely interesting&mdash;but so far one
+must admit that no sufficient proof is forthcoming to establish it as a
+fact: it ought not, therefore, to be spoken of as other than a theory,
+nor proclaimed as fact."</p>
+
+<p>Such constraint when rightly regarded is not or would not be a shackling
+of the human intellect, but a kindly and intelligent guidance of those
+unable to form a proper conclusion themselves. Such is the idea of the
+Church in the matter with which we have been dealing.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Darwiniana</i>, p. 147.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> See, for example, his <i>Life and Letters</i>, i., 307.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Hume</i>, <i>English Men of Letters Series</i>, p. 135.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Of course, it may be argued, no Fellow need have applied
+for an <i>imprimatur</i>; he did it <i>ex majori cantel&acirc;</i> as the lawyers say.
+This may be so, but the same applies to the ecclesiastical
+<i>imprimatur</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> The review from which the following quotations are made
+appeared in <i>Nature</i> on January 24, 1889.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Vol. ii., p. 113.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>Galileo and His Condemnation</i>, Catholic Truth Society of
+England.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="V_SCIENCE_AND_THE_WAR" id="V_SCIENCE_AND_THE_WAR"></a>V. SCIENCE AND THE WAR</h2>
+
+
+<p>Amongst various important matters now brought to a sharper focus in the
+public eye, few, if any, require more careful attention than that which
+is concerned with science, its value, its position, its teachings, and
+how it should be taught. No one who has followed the domestic
+difficulties due to our neglect of the warnings of scientific men can
+fail to see how we have had to suffer because of the lax conduct of
+those responsible for these things in the past.</p>
+
+<p>Within the first few weeks after the war broke out&mdash;to take one
+example&mdash;every medical man was the recipient of a document telling him
+of the expected shortage in a number of important drugs and suggesting
+the substitutes which he might employ. It was a timely warning; but it
+need never have been issued if we had not allowed the manufacture of
+drugs, and especially those of the so-called "synthetic" group, to drift
+almost entirely into the hands of the Badische Aniline Fabrik, and
+kindred firms in Germany. This difficulty, now partly overcome, is one
+which never would have arisen but for the deaf ear turned to the
+warnings of the scientific chemists.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> British pharmaceutical chemists,
+with one or two exceptions, had been relying upon foreign sources not
+only for synthetic drugs but actually for the raw materials of many of
+their preparations&mdash;such, for example, as aconite, belladonna, henbane,
+all of which can be freely grown&mdash;which even grow wild&mdash;in these
+islands; even, incredible as it may seem, for foxglove leaves. These
+things with many others were imported from Germany and Austria. Here
+again leeway has had to be made up; but it ought never to have been
+necessary, and now that the war is over steps should be taken to see
+that it never need be necessary again. The encouragement of British
+herb-gardens and of scientific experiment therein on the best method of
+culture for the raw material of our organic medicines must certainly be
+matters early taken in hand.</p>
+
+<p>The classical example of the mortal injury done to British manufacture
+by the British manufacturer's former contempt for the scientific man is
+that of the aniline dyes, which are so closely associated with the
+synthetic drugs as to form one subject of discussion. Quite early in the
+war dye-stuffs ran short, and there was no means of replenishing the
+stock in Britain, nor even in America, these products having formed the
+staple of a colossal manufacture, with an enormous financial turnover,
+in Germany.</p>
+
+<p>Let us look at the history of these dyes. The first aniline dye was
+discovered quite by accident, in 1856, by the late Professor W. H.
+Perkin. He called it "mauve," from the French word for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> mallow, the
+colour of whose flower it somewhat resembled. In 1862 there was an
+International Exhibition in London; and those who remembered it and its
+predecessor of 1851 have declared that the case of aniline
+dye-stuffs&mdash;for by that time quite a number of new pigments had been
+discovered&mdash;excited at the later the same attention as that given to the
+Koh-i-noor at the earlier. The invention, out of which grew the enormous
+German business already alluded to, and with which has been associated
+the discovery and manufacture of the synthetic drugs, was entirely
+British in its inception and in its early stages. Moreover the raw
+materials on which it depended, namely, gas-tar products, were to be had
+in greater abundance in England than anywhere else. Yet, at the time
+when the war broke out, this industry had been allowed almost entirely
+to drift into German hands.</p>
+
+<p>How was this? Let an expert reply. It was due, he tells us, to the
+neglect of "the repeated warnings which have been issued since that
+time" (<i>viz.</i> 1880, by which date the Germans had succeeded in capturing
+the trade in question) "in no uncertain voice by Meldola, Green, the
+Perkins (father and son), and many other English chemists." Further, he
+continues, two causes have invariably been indicated for the transfer of
+this industry to Germany&mdash;"first the neglect of organic chemistry in the
+Universities and colleges of this country" (a neglect which has long
+ceased), "and then the disregard by manufacturers of scientific methods
+and assistance and total in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>difference to the practice of research in
+connection with their processes and products." I remember talking some
+twenty-five years ago to a highly educated young student of Birmingham
+who was of German parentage though of English birth. He had just taken
+the degree of Doctor of Science in London University, and was on the eve
+of abandoning the adopted country of his parents for a position in the
+research laboratories of the Badische company, where he would be one
+among a number of chemists, running into hundreds, all engaged in
+research on gas-tar products. At that moment the great Birmingham
+gas-company was employing the services of one trained chemist.</p>
+
+<p>Such was and is the neglect of science by business men. Could it have
+been otherwise, considering their bringing up? Let me again be
+reminiscent. I suppose the public school in England (not a Catholic
+school, for I was then a Protestant) at which I pursued what were
+described as studies did not in any very marked degree differ from its
+sister schools throughout the country. How was science encouraged there?
+One hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time devoted weekly, not to
+Greek and Latin (that would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the
+writing of Greek and Latin prose and alleged Greek and Latin verse&mdash;that
+was the amount of time which was devoted to what was called science. I
+suppose I had an ingrained vocation for science, for it was the only
+subject, except English composition, in which I ever felt interest at
+school. If the vocation had not been there,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> any interest in the subject
+must necessarily have been slain once for all in me, as I am sure it was
+in scores of others, by the way it was taught; for the instruction was
+confided to the ordinary form-master, who doled out his questions from a
+text-book perfunctorily used and probably heartily despised by a man
+brought up on strict classical or mathematical lines. Our manufacturer
+is brought up in a school of this kind, and it would be a miracle if he
+emerged from it with any respect for science. Things have changed now,
+and for the better, as they have at most of the Universities; but we are
+dealing with the generation of manufacturers of my age who were largely
+responsible for the neglects now in question. Well, the boy left his
+school and went to Oxford or Cambridge, neither of which then greatly
+encouraged science. Its followers were, I believe, known as "Stinks
+Men." At any rate it is only comparatively recently that we have seen
+the splendid developments of to-day in those ancient institutions. One
+relic of the ancient days gives us an illuminating idea of how things
+used to be, just as a fossil shows us the environment of its day.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>
+Trinity College, Dublin, has fine provision for scientific teaching, and
+a highly competent staff to teach. But in its constitution it shows the
+attitude towards science which till lately informed the older
+Universities.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Trinity College has in its Fellowship system one of the most important
+series of pecuniary rewards perhaps in Europe, of an educational
+character. A man has only once to pass an examination, admittedly one of
+great severity and competitive in character, and thenceforward to go on
+living respectably and doing such duties as are committed to him, to be
+ensured an excellent and increasing income for life. How great the
+rewards are will be gathered from the fact that a distinguished occupant
+of one of these positions some years ago endeavoured&mdash;with complete
+success&mdash;to enforce on me the importance of the Fellowship examination
+by telling me that he had already received over &pound;50,000 in emoluments as
+a result of his success. He has received a good deal more since, and I
+hope will continue to be the recipient of this shower of gold for many
+years to come.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> No doubt much might be urged for this system, which
+was for a long time popular in China for the selection of Mandarins, and
+I am not criticising it here. What I want to emphasise is that the
+examination for these valuable positions is either classical or
+mathematical, and there it ends. The greatest biologist in the world
+would have as much chance of a Fellowship as the ragged urchin in the
+street unless he could "settle Hoti's business" or elucidate [Greek: P]
+or do other things of that kind. It is a luminous example of what
+was&mdash;must we say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> is?&mdash;thought of science in certain academic circles.
+Of course it may be urged&mdash;I have actually heard it urged&mdash;that nothing
+is science save that which is treatable by mathematical methods. It was
+a kind of inverted M. Jourdain who used this argument, a gentleman who
+imagined himself to have been teaching science during a long life
+without ever having effected what he supposed to be his object. Then,
+again, our manufacturer, whose object in life is to make money, is
+naturally, perhaps even necessarily, affected by the kind of salaries
+which highly trained and highly eminent men of science receive by way of
+reward for their work. Few, if any, receive anything like the emoluments
+attaching to the position of County Court Judge, and I know of only one
+case in which a Professor's income, to the delight and envy of all the
+teaching profession, actually, for a few years, soared somewhat near the
+empyrean of a Puisne Judge's reward.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this is not to be wondered at; for Parliament always contains
+many lawyers, and at the moment, I think, not a single scientific
+expert, at least among the Commons. This is not really a sordid
+argument, though it may appear so. The labourer, after all, is worthy of
+his hire; but in the scientific world it very, very seldom happens that
+the hire is worthy of the labourer. Even to this day there is plenty of
+truth in the description of the attitude of Mr. Meagles towards Mr.
+Doyce as detailed by the author of <i>Little Dorrit</i>. Perhaps that is
+partly because it is generally the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> man of business, and not the unhappy
+man of science, who gains the money produced by scientific discoveries.
+These are often, if not usually, made by accident, and by a man on the
+track of something else, on the elucidation of which he is probably so
+intent that he cannot spare time for side-issues, very likely never even
+thinks of them. Sir James Dewar discovered the principle of the "Thermos
+flask" whilst he was working at the exceedingly difficult subject of the
+liquefaction of air. I hope Sir James had the prescience to patent his
+discovery, and reap the reward which was due to him; but, if he did, he
+is one amongst a thousand who never took this trouble and of whom <i>Sic
+vos non vobis</i> might well be said. When Sabatier had shown the
+importance of combinations of hydrogen effected by what is known as a
+catalyst, numerous patents were taken out&mdash;by other people, of
+course&mdash;on which were founded very flourishing businesses. Sabatier
+profited by none of these&mdash;so I understand. He received a Nobel prize
+for his discoveries; but another hath his heritage.</p>
+
+<p>Though science has not received any great encouragement, yet in spite of
+that&mdash;the cynic might say because of that&mdash;it has made amazing progress
+during the past half-century. Mr. Chesterton somewhere notes that "a
+time may easily come when we shall see the great outburst of science in
+the Nineteenth Century as something quite as splendid, brief, unique,
+and ultimately abandoned as the outburst of art at the Renaissance."
+That, of course, may be so, but as to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> the outburst there can be no
+question, nor of its persistence to the present day. That also is surely
+a curious phenomenon; for, as regards most other things, we seem to be
+in the trough of the wave, and not merely in these islands but all over
+the civilised world. In Art, in Music, in Literature, in the Drama, it
+would be difficult to argue in favour of a pre-eminence, or even of an
+equality of the present age, comparing it with its predecessors.</p>
+
+<p>Take the politicians of the world; it is perhaps difficult, even
+foolish, for us who are living with them to prophesy with any
+approximation of accuracy what the historian of a future day may say
+about them. He may sum them up as respectable, honest mediocrities
+trying to do their best under exceptionally difficult circumstances; he
+may put them lower; he may put them higher; he may differentiate between
+those of different nations; but there is little doubt that, with the
+exception of the American President, he will not be able to point to any
+one of the calibre of Pitt or of Bismarck or of the less severely tried
+Disraeli or Gladstone.</p>
+
+<p>But just the reverse is the case in science, which has men of the very
+first rank living, working, and discovering to-day. There are indeed
+signs that even our Government is cognizant of this. The creation of a
+Department of Industrial Scientific Research, the provision of a
+substantial income for the same, the increase of research-grants to
+learned societies, these and other things show that some attempt will be
+made to recognise the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> value of science to the State. Further, the
+lesson seems to have gone home to some few at least that there is no
+difference between what have been absurdly called Pure and Applied
+Science, since so very many "Applied" discoveries&mdash;such as the
+"Thermos"&mdash;arose in the course of what certainly would have been
+described as "Pure" researches.</p>
+
+<p>It is to the public advantage that every educated person should know
+something about science; nor is this by any means as big or difficult an
+achievement as some may imagine. It is not necessary to teach any very
+large number of persons very much about any particular science or group
+of sciences. What is really important is that people should imbibe some
+knowledge of scientific methods&mdash;of the meaning of science. This can be
+done from the study of quite a few fundamental propositions of any one
+science under a good teacher&mdash;a first essential. Any person thus
+educated will, for the remainder of his life, be able at least to
+understand what is meant by science and the scientific method of
+approaching a problem. He will not, like an educational troglodyte at a
+recent Conference, refuse to describe anything as science which is not
+capable of mathematical treatment, nor allude compendiously to
+physiological study as "the cutting up of frogs." In a word, he will be
+an educated man, which can no more be said of one ignorant of science
+than it can be of one whose mind has never experienced the softening
+influence of letters.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So far, everybody whose opinion counts seems to be agreed; but in any
+plea for an extended and improved teaching of science, certain points
+ought not to be left out of count. In the first place, science is not
+the key to all locks; there are many important things&mdash;some of the most
+important things in life&mdash;with which it has nothing whatever to do. It
+will be well to recall Mr. Balfour's words at the opening of the
+National Physical Laboratory: "Science depends on measurement, and
+things not measurable are therefore excluded, or tend to be excluded,
+from its attention. But Life and Beauty and Happiness are not
+measurable. If there could be a unit of happiness, politics might begin
+to be scientific." It follows that there are a number of subjects on
+which the scientific man is just as fit, or as unfit, to express an
+opinion as any other man. The intense preoccupation which serious
+scientific studies demand, may render the man who is engaged therein
+even less competent to express an opinion on alien subjects than one
+whose attention, less concentrated, has time to range over diverse
+fields of study. Readers of Darwin's <i>Life</i> will remember his confession
+that he had lost all taste for music, art, and literature; that he
+"could not endure to read a line of poetry" and found Shakespeare "so
+intolerably dull that it nauseated" him; and finally, that his mind
+seemed "to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out
+of a large collection of facts."</p>
+
+<p>Despite this warning as to the limits of science,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> we have no lack of
+instances of scientific men posing as authorities on subjects on which
+they had no real right to be heard, and, what is worse, being accepted
+as such by the uninstructed crowd. Thus Professor Huxley, who, as some
+one once said, "made science respectable," was wont to utter pontifical
+pronouncements on the subject of Home Rule for Ireland. His knowledge of
+that country was quite rudimentary, and his visits to it had been as few
+and as brief as if he had been its Sovereign; but that did not prevent
+him from delivering judgment, nor unfortunately deter many from
+following that judgment as if it had been inspired. I am not now arguing
+as to the rights and wrongs of Huxley's view on the matter in question:
+I have my own opinion on that. What I am urging is that his position,
+whether as a zoologist or, incidentally, as a great master of the
+English language, in no way entitled him to express an opinion or
+rendered him a better authority on such a question than any casual
+fellow-traveller in a railway carriage might easily be.</p>
+
+<p>This is bad enough; but what is far worse is when scientific experts on
+the strength of their study of Nature assume the right of uttering
+judicial pronouncements on moral and sociological questions, judgments
+some at least of which are subversive of both decency and liberty. Thus
+we have lately been told that it is "wanton cruelty" to keep a weak or
+sickly child alive; and the medical man, under a reformed system of
+medical ethics, is to have leave and licence to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> put an end to its life
+in a painless manner. To what enormities and dastardly agreements this
+might lead need hardly be suggested; and I am quite confident that the
+members of the honourable profession of physic, to which I am proud to
+belong, have no desire whatever for such a reform of the law or of their
+ethics. Then we are told in the same address (Bateson, <i>British
+Association Addresses in Australia</i>, 1914) that on the whole a decline
+in the birth-rate is rather a good thing, and that families averaging
+four children are quite enough to keep the world going comfortably. The
+date of this address will be noted; and the fact that the war, which was
+then just beginning, has probably caused its author and has caused
+everybody else to see the utter futility of such assertions.</p>
+
+<p>However, if we are to rear only four children per marriage, and if we
+are to give the medical man liberty to weed out the weaklings, it
+behoves us to see that the children whom we produce are of the best
+quality. Let us, therefore, hie to the stud-farm, observe its methods
+and proceed to apply them to the human race. We must definitely prevent
+feeble-minded persons from propagating their species. Within limits,
+that is a proposition with which all instructed persons would agree,
+though few, we imagine, would put their opinions so uncharitably as the
+lecturer did: "The union of such social vermin we should no more permit
+than we would allow parasites to breed on our own bodies." But we must
+go farther than this, and introduce all sorts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> restrictions on
+matrimony, until finally it comes to be a matter to be arranged under
+rigid laws by a jury of elderly persons&mdash;all, we may feel perfectly
+sure, "cranks" of the first water.</p>
+
+<p>In what <i>milieu</i> are their findings to take effect? It is very important
+to consider that. The author from whom I have been quoting tells us what
+we want to know. Man, he tells us, is "a rather long-lived animal, with
+great powers of enjoyment, if he does not deliberately forgo them." In
+the past, we are told, "superstitious and mythical ideas of sin have
+predominantly controlled these powers." We have changed all that now; as
+the parent in <i>Punch</i> says to the crying child by the seashore, "You've
+come out to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself you shall!" So we are to
+plunge into the whirlpool of eugenic delights without any fear of that
+"bugbear of a hell" which another writer congratulates us on getting rid
+of. We can, it appears, enter upon our eugenic experiment without a
+single moral scruple to restrain us or a single religious restriction to
+interfere with us. In this soil is the plant to be grown, and the first
+weed to be eradicated is that of the right of personal choice of a
+partner for life, or for such other term as the law under the new
+<i>r&eacute;gime</i> may require. Jack is to be torn from weeping Jill, and handed
+over to reluctant Joan, to whom he is personally displeasing and for
+whom he has not the slightest desire, and handed over because the
+Breeding Committee think it is likely to prove advantageous for the
+Coming Race. All that may be possible&mdash;or may not&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>but what then? When
+you are carrying out Mendelian experiments on peas, you can enclose your
+flowers in muslin bags and prevent anything interfering with your
+observations. And in the stud-farm you can keep the occupants shut up.</p>
+
+<p>But what are you going to do with Jack? and with Jill? And still more
+with Joan? They cannot be permanently isolated, neither are they
+restrained by any "mythical ideas of sin." They have been educated to
+the idea that their highest duty is to enjoy themselves. Why should they
+not do what they like? And consequently, as any reasoning person can
+see, "The Inevitable" must happen; and where is your experiment and
+where the Coming Race? It is perfectly useless for doctrinaires to
+argue, as doctrinaires will, about ethical restraints. Nature has <i>no</i>
+ethical restraints; and any ethical restraints which man has come from
+that higher nature of his which he does not share with the lower
+creation. What those whom the late Mr. Devas so aptly called
+"after-Christians" always forget is that the humane, the Christian side
+of life, which they as well as others exhibit, is due to the influence,
+lingering if you like, of Christianity. They ignore or forget the pit
+out of which they were digged.</p>
+
+<p>By another Eugenist we are told that willy-nilly every sound, healthy
+person of either sex must get married or at least betake him or herself
+to the business of propagating the race. That at least is the essence of
+his singularly offensive dictum that since the celibacy of the Catholic
+clergy and of members of Religious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> Orders deprives the State of a
+number of presumably excellent parents, "if monastic orders and
+institutions are to continue, they should be open only to the
+eugenically unfit."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> If the religious call is not to be permitted to
+dispense a man or woman from entering the estate of matrimony, it may be
+assumed that nothing else, except an unfavourable report from the
+committee of selection, will do so. And, further, as the one object of
+all this is to bring super-children into the world, we must also assume
+that those who fail in this duty will find themselves in peril of the
+law.</p>
+
+<p>Surely what has been set down shows that whatever scientific reputation
+the writers in question possess, and it is undeniably great, it has not
+equipped them, one will not merely say with moral or religious ideas,
+but with an ordinary knowledge of human nature. It has not equipped them
+with any conception apparently of political possibilities; and it has
+left them without any of that saving salt, a sense of humour. Like
+Huxley, they have started out to give opinions without first having made
+themselves familiar with the subject on which they were to deliver
+judgment.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps little to be wondered at that the intense preoccupation
+which the study of science entails should tend to induce those whose
+attention is constantly fixed on Nature to imagine that from Nature can
+be drawn not only lessons of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> physical life but lessons also of conduct.
+Of course this is quite wrong; for Nature has no moral lesson to teach
+us. We are told to go to the ant&mdash;at least the sluggard is&mdash;but for
+what? To amend his sluggardliness. No one has ever suggested that we
+should go to Nature to learn to be humble, kindly, unselfish, tolerant,
+and Christian, in our dealings with others; and for this excellent
+reason, that none of these things can be learnt from Nature. Science is
+neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral; and, as we have seen a
+thousand times in this present war, its kindest gifts to man can be
+used, and are used, for his cruel destruction. In this war,
+pre-eminently amongst all wars, we have the application of pure natural
+principles unameliorated by the influences of Christianity, or of
+chivalry, Christianity's offspring. As Sir Robert Borden has summed it
+up, German kultur is an attempt "to impose upon us the law of the
+jungle."</p>
+
+<p>Natural Selection, some would have us believe, is the dominant law of
+living nature, and all would agree that it is an important law. Let us
+then, if we are to follow Nature, put it into practice. But Natural
+Selection means the Survival of the Fittest in the Struggle for Life. It
+consequently means the Extermination of the Less Fit, a little fact
+often left out of count. It means in three words "Might is Right," and
+was not that exactly the proposition by which we were confronted in this
+war? If Natural Selection be our only guide, let us sink hospital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+ships, destroy innocent villages and towns, exterminate our weaker
+opponents in any way that seems best to us. It was all summed up
+centuries ago by the author of the Book of Wisdom: "Let us oppress the
+poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey
+hairs of the aged. But let your strength be the law of justice: for that
+which is feeble is found to be nothing worth." That is Natural Selection
+in operation in human life when human beings have been stripped of all
+"mythical ideas of Sin:" not a pretty picture nor a condition of affairs
+under which we should like long to exist. Some of the other resemblances
+are less dreadful, but none the less instructive. Let us take the matter
+of Mimicry. There is a form of protective mimicry whereby the living
+thing is like unto its surroundings, and thus escapes its enemy. We find
+it in warfare in the use of khaki dress, in white overalls in snow-time,
+in other such expedients. But there is also a form of Aggressive Mimicry
+in which a deadly thing makes itself look like something innocent, as
+the wolf tried to look in "Little Red Riding Hood." "The Germans were
+beginning their attack on Haumont. Their front-line skirmishers, to
+throw us into confusion, had donned caps which were a faint imitation of
+our own, and also provided themselves with Red Cross brassards" (<i>The
+Battle of Verdun.</i> H. Dugard). Not to be tedious on this point, which
+really does not require to be laboured, let me finish with one quotation
+from a vivid series of war-pictures. Boyd Cable is writing of men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> in
+the trenches: "Civilised Man, in his latest art of war, has gone back to
+be taught one more simple lesson by the beast of the field and the birds
+of the air; the armed hosts are hushed and stilled by the passing
+air-machine, exactly as the finches and field-mice of hedgerow and ditch
+and field are frozen to stillness by the shadow of a hovering hawk, the
+beat of its passing wing."</p>
+
+<p>No; an existence passed under conditions of this kind and as the normal
+state of affairs is not an existence to be contemplated with equanimity.
+We are anxious that science and scientific teaching should be assisted
+in every possible way. But let us be quite clear that while science has
+much to teach us and we much to learn from her, there are things as to
+which she has no message to the world. The Minor Prophets of science are
+never tired of advising theologians to keep their hands off science. The
+Major Prophets are too busy to occupy themselves with such polemics. But
+the theologian is abundantly in his right in saying to the scientific
+writer "Hands off morals!" for with morality science has nothing to do.
+Let us at any rate avoid that form of kultur which consists in bending
+Natural History to the teaching of conduct, uncorrected by any Christian
+injunctions to soften its barbarities.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Since these lines were written, this state of affairs has
+come to an end and the first Fellow has been elected for his purely
+scientific attainments, in the person of the distinguished geologist,
+Professor Joly, F.R.S.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> It was the late distinguished Provost, Sir John Mahaffy,
+at whose instance the change in the Fellowship system was introduced.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Conklyn, <i>Heredity and Environment in the Development of
+Men</i>. Princeton University Press, 1915.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="VI_HEREDITY_AND_ARRANGEMENT" id="VI_HEREDITY_AND_ARRANGEMENT"></a>VI. HEREDITY AND "ARRANGEMENT"</h2>
+
+
+<p>Some years ago, when I was delivering a lecture at the Cathedral Hall of
+Westminster, in the course of the questioning which took place at the
+termination of the discourse, which was on vitalism, I was asked by one
+who signed his paper, "So and So, Atheist," "What would you say if you
+saw a duck come out of a hen's egg?" I recognised at once the idea at
+the back of the question and appreciated the fact that it had been asked
+by one who, as some one has said, "called himself an advanced
+free-thinker, but was really a very ignorant and vulgar person who was
+suffering from a surfeit of the ideas of certain people cleverer than
+himself." But, as a full discussion of the matter would have taken at
+least as long as the lecture which I had just concluded, my reply was
+that before I attempted to explain it I would wait to see the duck come
+out of the hen's egg, since no man had as yet witnessed such an event. I
+do not know whether my atheistical questioner was satisfied or not, but
+I heard no more of him. But, after all, is it not a marvellous thing
+that a duck never does come out of a hen's egg? If everything happens by
+chance, as some would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> have us believe, why is it that a duck does not
+occasionally emerge from a hen's egg? Surely this is a <i>miraculum</i>, a
+thing to be wondered at, yet so common that it goes unnoticed, like many
+other wonderful things which are also matters of common everyday
+occurrence, such as the spinning of the earth on its own axis and its
+course round the sun and through the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>If we pursue this question further we shall begin to remember that
+creatures more nearly related to one another also "breed true." The hen
+and the duck are both birds, but they are not so nearly allied to one
+another as the lion and the tiger, both of which are <i>Felid&aelig;</i>, or cats.
+Yet no one ever expects that a tiger will be born of a lioness, or <i>vice
+versa</i>. Further, the pug and the greyhound are both of them dogs: the
+name <i>canis domesticus</i> applies to both, and one would be distinguished
+from the other in a scientific list as "Var. (<i>i.e.</i> variety) 'pug,'" or
+"Var. 'greyhound.'" Yet one can imagine the surprise of a breeder if a
+greyhound was born in his carefully selected and guarded kennel of pugs.
+In a word, not only species, but varieties do tend to breed true; the
+child does resemble its parent or parents. No doubt the resemblance is
+not absolute: there is variation as well as inheritance. Sometimes the
+variation may be recognised as a feature possessed by a grandparent or
+even by some collateral relative such as an uncle or great-uncle;
+sometimes this may not be the case, though the non-recognition of the
+likeness does not in any way preclude the possibility that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> the
+peculiarity may have been also possessed by some other member of the
+family. But on the whole the offspring does closely resemble its
+parents; that is to say, not only the species and the variety but the
+individual "breeds true." "Look like dey are bleedzed to take atter der
+pa," as Uncle Remus said when he was explaining how the rabbit comes to
+have a bobtail. Moreover this resemblance is not merely in the great
+general features. Apart from monstrosities, the children of human beings
+are human beings; the children of white parents have white skins, those
+of black progenitors are black. Commonly, though not always by any
+means, the children of dark-haired parents are themselves dark-haired,
+and so on. But smaller features are also transmitted, and transmitted
+too for many generations; for example, the well-known case of the
+Hapsburg lip, visible in so many portraits of Spanish monarchs and their
+near relatives, and visible in life to-day. Again, there are families in
+which the inner part of one eyebrow has the hairs growing upwards
+instead of in the ordinary way, a feature which is handed on from one
+generation to another. Even more minute features than this have been
+known to be transmissible and transmitted, such as a tiny pit in the
+skin on the ear or on the face. In fact, there is hardly any feature, no
+matter how small, which may not become a hereditary possession.</p>
+
+<p>If in-and-in breeding occur, as it may do amongst human beings in a
+locality much removed from other places of habitation, it may even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+happen that what may be looked upon as a variety of the human race may
+arise, though when it arises it is always easy to wipe it out and
+restore things to the normal by the introduction of fresh blood, to use
+the misleading term commonly employed, where the Biblical word "seed"
+comes much nearer to the facts.</p>
+
+<p>Thus there is a well-authenticated case in France (in Brittany if I
+remember right) of a six-fingered race which existed for a number of
+generations in a very isolated place and was restored to
+five-fingeredness when an increase in the populousness of the district
+permitted a wider selection in the matter of marriages.</p>
+
+<p>And similarly, not long ago an account was published of an albino race
+somewhere in Canada which had acquired a special name.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it has been wiped out by this time by wider marriages, though
+these might be effected with greater difficulty by albinos than by
+six-fingered persons. At any rate no one can doubt that it might at any
+time be wiped out by such marriages, though even when apparently wiped
+out, sporadic cases might be expected to occur: what the breeders call
+"throws-back," when they see an animal which resembles some ancestor
+further back in the line of descent than its actual progenitors.
+Certainly the most remarkable instance of the reliance which we have
+come to feel respecting this matter of inheritance is that which was
+afforded by a recent case of disputed paternity interesting on both
+sides of the Atlantic, since the events in dispute occurred in America
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> the property and the dispute concerning it were in England.</p>
+
+<p>It was obviously a most difficult and disputable case, but the judge, a
+shrewd observer, noticed, when the putative father was in the box, a
+feature in his countenance which seemed closely to resemble what was to
+be seen in the child which he claimed to be his own. A careful
+examination of the parents and of the child was made by an eminent
+sculptor, accustomed to minute observation of small features of variety
+in those sitting to him as models.</p>
+
+<p>He reported and showed to the court that there were remarkable features
+in the head of the child which resembled, on the one hand an unusual
+configuration in the mother&mdash;or the woman who claimed to be the
+mother&mdash;and on the other a well-marked feature in her husband. And as a
+result the father and mother won their case, and were proclaimed the
+parents of the child because of the resemblance of these features; and,
+if we think for a moment, we shall see, because also of the reliance
+which the human race has come to place in the fidelity of inheritance,
+of its perfect certainty, so to speak, that a duck will not come out of
+a hen's egg, and the fact of this reliance on a generally received truth
+remains, whatever may be said as to the legal aspect of such evidence.</p>
+
+<p>Inheritance is a fact recognised by everybody, and the only reason why
+we refuse to wonder at it is because, like other wonderful yet everyday
+facts, such as the growth of a great tree from a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> tiny seed, it <i>is</i> so
+everyday that we have ceased to wonder at it. It is there: we know that.
+But have we any kind of idea how it comes about? The duck does not, as a
+matter of common experience, come out of a hen's egg. Why does it come
+out of a duck's egg? Why doesn't it come out, if only rarely, from a
+hen's egg? In other words, do we know what it is that explains
+inheritance or how it is that there is such a thing as inheritance?
+Well, candour obliges me to say that we do not. In spite of all the work
+which has been expended upon this question we are totally ignorant of
+the mechanism of heredity. Nevertheless it will be instructive to glance
+at the theories which have been put forward to explain this matter.</p>
+
+<p>All living things spring from a small germ, and in the vast majority of
+cases this germ is the product in part of the male and in part of the
+female parent. It is therefore natural that we should in the first place
+turn our attention to this germ and ask ourselves whether there is
+anything in its construction which will give us the key of the mystery.
+There is not, at least there is nothing definite as shown by our most
+powerful microscopes. To be sure there is a remarkable substance, called
+chromatin because of its capacity for taking up certain dyes, which
+evidently plays some profoundly important part in the processes of
+development. We may suspect that this is the thing which carries the
+physical characteristics from one generation to another, but we cannot
+prove it; and though some authorities think that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> it is, others deny it.
+Even if it be, it can hardly be supposed that microscopic research will
+ever be able to establish the fact, and that for reasons which must now
+be explained.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose that we visit a vast botanic garden, and in the seed-time
+of each of the plants therein contained select from each plant a single
+ripe seed. It is clear that, if we take home that collection of seeds,
+we shall have in them a miniature picture of the garden from which they
+were culled, or at least we shall be in possession of the potentiality
+of such a garden, for, if we sow these seeds and have the good fortune
+to see them all develop, take root and grow, we shall actually possess a
+replica of the garden from which they came. Not exactly, it may be
+urged, for the distribution or arrangement of the seeds must have been
+carefully looked to, if the gardens are to resemble each other otherwise
+than in the mere possession of identical plants. I admit the truth of
+this, but cannot for the moment discuss it. At any rate we should have
+the same plants in both gardens.</p>
+
+<p>On this analogy, many have suggested that every organ in the body&mdash;we
+must go further, and say that every marked feature in every organ in the
+body&mdash;is represented in the germ by a seed which can grow, under
+favourable circumstances, into just such another organ or feature of an
+organ. This was the theory put forward by Darwin under the name of
+"pangenesis," and by others under other titles with which it is
+unnecessary to burden these pages. All these theories have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> been summed
+together under the name "micromeristic," that is small-fragmented, or
+again, "particulate," since they all postulate the existence in the germ
+of innumerable small fragments&mdash;seeds&mdash;which are capable of growing into
+complete plants or organs under favourable circumstances. Again, this,
+even if true, does not by any means exhaust the matter, for it does not
+explain why the seed of the eye implants itself and grows in the right
+place in the head instead of making a home for itself, let us say, in
+the sole of the foot. But again we must pass over that matter.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing inherently impossible in this theory; indeed, if we
+allow that the transmission of inheritable characteristics is purely
+material, and it may be, there is only one other conceivable way in
+which it can occur. It is true that the seeds must be almost
+innumerable, but the germ, though small, is capable of accommodating an
+almost innumerable number of independent factors, if the prevalent views
+as to the constitution of matter are to be believed. And, as it is quite
+inconceivable that we can ever have microscopes which could detect such
+minute objects as the ultimate bricks of which the atom&mdash;no, not even
+the atoms themselves which compose the germ&mdash;consists, it is impossible
+that we should be able to say that the seed-theory is untrue. Even if we
+could see these ultimate constituents it is in the last degree unlikely
+that they would have any resemblance to the things which are, on this
+theory to grow from them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> any more than the acorn resembles the oak
+which is to spring from it.</p>
+
+<p>But observe! the germ on this view must contain not only seeds from the
+immediate parents but from many, perhaps all, of the older generations
+of the family, otherwise how are we to account for the appearance of
+ancestral peculiarities which the father and mother do not show?
+Moreover, since very minute things, like the inner angle of the eyebrow,
+may independently vary, there must be an enormous number of seeds apart
+altogether from the considerations alluded to in the last paragraph. And
+many authorities who have closely considered the question have come to
+the conclusion that the complexities introduced would be so great that
+it is impossible to believe in any micromeristic theory.</p>
+
+<p>Then, of course, we must look out for some other explanation, and some
+have suggested that it is to be found in memory&mdash;the memory of the germ
+of what it was once part and the anticipation of what it may once more
+be. This again is an explanation not susceptible of proof along the
+lines of a chemical experiment, but not necessarily, therefore, untrue.
+Of course there are two ideas as to memory. If we are pure materialists
+and imagine every memory in our possession as something stamped, in some
+wholly incomprehensible manner, on some cell of our brain and looked at
+there, by some wholly inconceivable agency, when we sit down to think of
+past days, then we must look on the germ, under the "mnemic" or memory
+theory as consisting of fragments each of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> them impressed with the
+"memory" of some particular organ or feature of the body, and lo! we
+find ourselves back again in micromerism. If we are to take a
+non-materialistic view of memory we are plunged into a metaphysical
+discussion which cannot here be pursued. A third explanation, which by
+the way explains nothing, is that the whole matter is one of
+"arrangement," to which we shall return at the close of this paper.</p>
+
+<p>The mechanism of inheritance must either be physical<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> or it must be
+non-physical; that is, immaterial. This is what emerges from our
+discussion, and so far as science goes to-day it must be admitted that
+neither of these explanations can be said to be accepted generally by
+men of science or proved&mdash;perhaps even capable of proof&mdash;by scientific
+methods. If we know little or nothing about the mechanism of
+inheritance, can we and do we know anything about the laws under which
+it works, or has it any laws? Or are its operations a mere
+chance-medley? It is hardly necessary to ask the latter question, for
+chance-medley could not lead to regular operations&mdash;operations so
+regular that a court of law may act upon their evidence. Yes: we answer
+to the first question very lightly but without perhaps always thinking
+what that affirmative answer implies, a point to be considered in a
+moment. It may at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> once be said that we do now know a good deal about
+the laws under which inheritance works itself out, and that knowledge,
+as most people are now aware, is due to the quiet and for a time
+forgotten labours of Johann Gregor Mendel, once Abbot of the Augustinian
+Abbey of Br&uuml;nn, a prelate of that Church which loud-voiced ignoramuses
+are never tired of proclaiming to have been from the beginning even down
+to the present day the impassioned and deadly enemy of all scientific
+progress. Mendel saw that former workers at inheritance had been
+directing their attention to the <i>tout ensemble</i> of an individual or
+natural object; his idea was analytical in its nature, for he directed
+his attention to individual characteristics, such as stature or colour,
+or the like. And having thus directed his attention and confined his
+labours mainly to plants, since the study of generations of most animals
+is too lengthy a process for one man to carry out, he did in fact
+discover that there are very definite laws, capable even of numerical
+statement, under which inheritance acts. There is no need to explain or
+discuss them here: suffice it to say that there <i>are</i> such laws,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> as
+is now admitted by an overwhelming majority of the biologists of to-day.
+Mendel's facts were hidden in a somewhat obscure journal; they lay
+dormant, much to his annoyance, during his lifetime. Years after his
+death his papers were unearthed, and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> discoveries have been
+proclaimed as being as fundamental to biology as those of Newton and
+Dalton to other sciences.</p>
+
+<p>There are, then, laws. That means one of two things: either that these
+laws arose by chance-medley, or that some one enacted them. It seems
+impossible, when one surveys the orderly operations of Nature, among
+which are those conducted under the laws known by the name of their
+discoverer, Mendel&mdash;it seems wholly impossible that these operations
+arose by chance-medley. To me, at any rate, any such explanation is
+wholly unthinkable. But if it be an impossible explanation, as I and
+many thousands, not to say millions, of other persons believe, then
+there is no other way out of it than that these operations must have
+been planned by some one; in other words, that there must have been a
+Creator and Deviser of the world.</p>
+
+<p>People hide from this explanation, and one of the favourite sandbanks in
+which this particular kind of human ostrich plunges its head is
+"Nature." "Nature does this," and "Nature does that," forgetting
+entirely the fact that "Nature" is a mere personification and means
+either chance-medley or a Creator, according to the old dilemma. There
+is a very curious example of this inability or unwillingness to
+admit&mdash;perhaps even to understand&mdash;the force of this argument exhibited
+by those to whom one would suppose that it would come home with
+overpowering force: I mean, of course, the Mendelians.</p>
+
+<p>The most learned of these, and one of the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> open-minded of men,
+hints in one place that though he does not think it necessary himself to
+believe it, yet it might at least be suggested that, if in a certain
+organism we find things so placed that a certain combination is bound to
+emerge in a certain generation, such a state of affairs might have been
+prearranged. Now, if it was prearranged, the awful fact emerges that
+there must have been an arranger; in other words, a creative power. This
+explanation is taboo in certain circles. But one may reasonably ask,
+"What then?" Is it really suggested that these orderly sets of
+occurrences may occur not once or twice only but thousands and thousands
+of times, and this may all happen by chance? A very distant acquaintance
+with the mathematics of probability will show that this is a wholly
+untenable theory. We are generally answered by some purely verbal
+explanation, like the personification of "Nature" already alluded to.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in a recent discussion on inheritance in a Presidential Address to
+the British Association, to which I have already alluded, the writer
+with whose explanation I have just been dealing states that he thinks it
+"unlikely" that the factors of inheritance are "in any simple or literal
+sense material particles," and proceeds thus: "I suspect rather that
+their properties depend on some phenomenon of arrangement." Now, in the
+first place, this is no explanation at all, for the mechanism of
+inheritance must be either material or immaterial. If there is a
+phenomenon of "arrangement" there must be something to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> "arranged,"
+and this something can hardly be other than material if it is to be
+"arranged" at all. But let that pass. What is far more important is to
+remember that if a thing is to be "arranged" there must be somebody to
+"arrange" it, for chance-medley cannot "arrange" anything in an orderly
+manner; or if it could do so once, cannot be supposed capable of doing
+it a second time in a precisely similar manner, not to say capable of
+doing it countless thousands of times.</p>
+
+<p>If we go into a great museum our first idea, perhaps our last, concerns
+the arrangement found therein. But it may safely be said that no sane
+person ever entertained that idea without being perfectly aware that the
+arrangement was made by human hands, controlled, in the last resort, by
+the brain of the curator of the museum. Now, in a sense, the living body
+is a museum containing specimens of different kinds of cells. There are
+brain-cells, liver-cells, bone-cells, scores of different varieties of
+cells, and all of them, so to speak, are arranged in their appropriate
+cases.</p>
+
+<p>If we go to the brain-case we can search it through and through without
+finding a liver-cell, any more than we should find a typical brain-cell
+embedded in the marrow of one of the bones. The different specimens all
+occupy their appropriate positions. How did they get there? The future
+animal, like animals of all kinds, including man, commences as a single
+cell. All save a few interesting but at present negligible cases are
+composed of elements drawn from male<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> and female parents. This cell
+divides up into a multitude of others. At first these are to all
+appearances identical, but later they begin to differentiate, at first
+into three classes and afterwards into the multitude of different cells
+of which the body is composed. Further, these groups of cells become
+aggregated in appropriate groups, cells of one kind uniting with cells
+of the same kind and with no others. Here we have to do with
+arrangement, consummately skilful arrangement, an arrangement which
+practically never fails, for, leaving aside the case of monstrosity, a
+consideration of which would detain us too long, not merely are the
+various cells all placed in their proper positions, as we have seen, but
+their aggregation, the individual, is so formed as to belong to the
+proper compartment of that large museum, the world&mdash;the same compartment
+as that occupied by his progenitors. Neither the particulate nor the
+chemical theories help us here. The mnemic would, but it has its initial
+and insuperable difficulty, pointed out in another article in this
+volume, that, as you must have an experience before you can remember it,
+it in no way accounts for the first operation of arrangement. As to the
+material explanations, particulate or chemical, they amount to something
+like this: you have half a cart-load of bricks from one yard and half a
+cart-load from another, and when the bricks are dumped down in an
+appropriate place they form a little house, just like those occupied by
+the managers of the brickyards. So they may, but no one in his sense
+supposes that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> they will thus arrange themselves of their own power.
+Some one must arrange them. Who arranges the tiny bricks of which the
+animal body consists, or what arranges them? To revert to our previous
+example of the garden; suppose that we bring back from that which we
+desire to copy a bag of seeds representing all the plants which it
+contains. We have a plot of land of the same size as our example; we dig
+it and we dung it and then we scatter our seeds perfectly haphazard over
+its surface. What are the odds as to their coming up in an exactly
+similar pattern to those in the other garden. Mathematicians, I suppose,
+could calculate the probabilities, but they must be infinitesimally
+small. Yet in the case of the animal the pattern is always observed.</p>
+
+<p>It is quite useless for any one, however eminent an authority he may be,
+to dismiss the matter by saying "It is a phenomenon of arrangement," for
+that begs the whole question. A Martian visitor taken to Westminster
+Abbey and told that its construction was a "phenomenon of arrangement"
+might be expected to turn a scornful eye upon his cicerone and reply,
+"Any fool can see that, but who arranged it?"</p>
+
+<p>Hence, though wild horses would not drag such an admission from many, we
+are irresistibly compelled to adopt the theory of a Creator and a
+Maintainer also of nature and its operations&mdash;so-called&mdash;if we are to
+escape from the absurdities involved in any other explanation. Thus
+there are very important and fundamental matters to be deduced from the
+very little which we know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> about inheritance, just as there are from a
+hundred and one other lines of consideration related to this world and
+its contents. We do not know very much&mdash;it may fairly be said we <i>know</i>
+nothing as to the vehicle of inheritance. We know a little, but it is
+still a very little even in comparison with what we may yet come to know
+as the result of careful and long-continued experiment, about the laws
+of inheritance. What we do learn from our knowledge, such as it is, is
+the fact that we can give no intelligent or intelligible explanation of
+the facts brought before us except on the hypothesis of a Creator and
+Maintainer of all things.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> A third explanation, that the mechanism of inheritance is
+of a chemical character, is now being put forward, and some mention of
+this view, which is by no means one of general acceptance, will be found
+in another article in this volume.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> An account of them will be found in <i>A Century of
+Scientific Thought</i>, by the present writer, published by Messrs. Burns &amp;
+Oates.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="VII_SPECIAL_CREATION" id="VII_SPECIAL_CREATION"></a>VII. "SPECIAL CREATION"</h2>
+
+
+<p>Professor Scott, of Princeton, has recently given to the public in his
+Westbrook Lectures<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> an exceedingly impartial, convincing, and lucid
+statement of the evidence for the theory of evolution or transformism.
+On one point of terminology a few observations may not be amiss, since
+there is a certain amount of confusion still existing in the minds of
+many persons which can be and ought to be cleared up. Throughout his
+book Professor Scott contrasts evolution with what he calls "special
+creation." In so doing he is evidently in no way anxious to deny the
+fact that there is a Creator, and that evolution may fairly be regarded
+as His method of creation. In one passage he expressly states that
+"acceptance of the theory of evolution by no means excludes belief in a
+creative plan."</p>
+
+<p>And again, when dealing with the pal&aelig;ontological evidence in favour of
+evolution, he points out that Cuvier and Agassiz, examining it as it was
+known in their day, interpreted the facts as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> the carrying out of a
+systematic creative plan, an interpretation which the author claims "is
+not at all invalidated by the acceptance of the evolutionary theory." He
+is not, we need hardly say, in any way singular in taking up this
+attitude, since it was held by Darwin, by Wallace, by Huxley, and by
+other sturdy defenders of the doctrine of evolution.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, just as at the time that Darwin's views were first made public,
+many thought that they were subversive of Christianity, so, even now,
+some whose acquaintance with the problem and its history is of a
+superficial character, are inclined when they see the word creation,
+even with the qualifying adjective "special" prefixed to it, used in
+contradistinction to evolution, to imagine that the theory of creation,
+and of course of a Creator, must fall to the ground if evolution should
+be proved to be the true explanation of living things and their
+diversities.</p>
+
+<p>It is more than a little difficult for us, living at the present day, to
+understand this curious frame of mind; yet it certainly existed, and
+existed where it might least have been expected to exist. Nor is it
+quite extinct to-day, though it only lingers in the less instructed
+class of persons. The misconception arose from a confusion between the
+fact and the method of creation. As to the former, no Catholic, no
+Christian, no theist has any kind of doubt; indeed there are those who
+could not be classified under any of those categories who still would be
+prepared to admit that there must be a First Cause as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> explanation
+of the universe. Some of them, whose reasoning is a little difficult to
+follow, seem to be content with an immanent, blind god, a mere
+mainspring to the clock, making it move, no doubt, but otherwise
+powerless. If we neglect&mdash;in a mathematical sense&mdash;those who adopt the
+agnostic attitude; content themselves with the formula <i>ignoramus et
+ignorabimus</i> of Du Bois Reymond, and confine their investigations to the
+machine as a going machine without inquiring how it came to be a machine
+or what set it to work, we shall, I think, find that most people who
+have really thought out the question admit that the only reasonable
+explanation of things as they are, is the postulation of a Free First
+Cause; in other words, an Omnipotent Creator of the universe. Such, of
+course, is the teaching of the Scriptures and of the Church, and it must
+be admitted that neither of them carries us very much further in this
+matter. In fact, whilst both are perfectly clear and definite about the
+fact of creation, neither of them has much to say about the method. Yet,
+as all admit, evolution concerns only the method and tells us absolutely
+nothing about the cause.</p>
+
+<p>Being omnipotent, it is obvious that its Maker might have created the
+universe in any way which seemed good to Him&mdash;for example, all at once
+out of nothing just as it stands at this moment. Such a thing would not
+be impossible to Omnipotence; and, as we know, Fallopius, suddenly
+confronted by the problems of fossils in the sixteenth century, did
+suggest that they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> created just as they were, and that they had
+never been anything else. So did Philip Gosse some two and a half
+centuries later.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing more sure than that the world was not created just as
+it is. Reason and Scripture both teach us that, and geology makes it
+quite clear that the appearance of living things upon the earth has been
+successive; that groups of living things, like the giant saurians, which
+were once the dominant zoological objects, had their day and have gone,
+as we may suppose, for ever. A few very lowly forms, like the
+lamp-shells, have persisted almost throughout the history of life on the
+earth, but on the whole the picture which we see is one of appearances,
+culminations, and disappearances of successive races of living things.
+There was a time when Trilobites, crustaceans whose nearest living
+representatives are the King-Crabs, first became features of the fauna
+of the earth. Then they increased to such an extent as to become the
+most prominent feature. Then they declined in importance, disappeared,
+and for uncounted ages have existed only as fossils. Thus we conclude
+that the creation of species was a progressive affair, just as the
+creation of individuals is a successive affair, for every living thing,
+coming as it does into existence by the power of the Creator, is His
+creation and in a very real sense a special creation. Now we know very
+well how living things come into existence to-day; can we form any idea
+as to how they originated in the beginning? Milton, in his crude
+description in <i>Paradise Lost</i>, pictured living things as gradually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+rising out of and extricating themselves from the soil.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The grassy clods now calved, now half appeared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tawny lion, pawing to get free<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rampant shakes his brindled mane; the ounce,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In hillocks: the swift stag from underground<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behemoth, biggest born of earth, up heaved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His vastness."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In this description Milton probably represented the ideas of his day&mdash;a
+day penetrated with literal interpretation of the Scripture, though it
+is well to recall to our minds the fact that not one word or idea of the
+above is contained in the Bible. The only suggestion is that the body of
+Adam was fashioned from the "slime of the earth," the precise meaning of
+which phrase has never been defined by the Church.</p>
+
+<p>Again, we have to say that the Miltonic scheme is not impossible, any
+more than any other scheme is impossible, but we may further say that it
+is more than improbable, and with every reverence we may add that to us
+it does not seem to be specially consonant with the greatness and wisdom
+of God. There remains the derivative form of creation, compendiously
+styled evolution. That this also is a possible method of creation no one
+will deny, and it has been discussed as such by many of the greatest
+thinkers in the history of the Church. We can consider it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> therefore,
+from the point of fact or of knowledge as we now possess it, and we can
+do so without imagining that, in so doing, we are contemplating a method
+which is anything else but the carrying out of a creative plan, existing
+perfect and complete and from all eternity in the mind of the Being
+Whose conception it was and by whose <i>fiat</i> it came to pass. Moreover,
+each form produced is a special creation, since it was specially
+designed to be as it is and to appear when it did, just as the
+clockmaker intends his clock to strike twelve at noon, though he can
+hardly be said to make it strike at that moment. Hence to place special
+creation in antagonism to evolution is really to use an ambiguous
+phraseology. No doubt it is not easy to find the proper phraseology.
+Some have employed the terms "immediate" and "mediate," to which also a
+certain amount of ambiguity is attached. Perhaps "direct" and
+"derivative" might convey more accurate ideas; but whatever terminology
+we adopt, we are still safe in saying that whether God makes things or
+makes them make themselves He is creating them and specially creating
+them.</p>
+
+<p>This is not the place to enter into any elaborate discussion as to the
+truth of the theory of evolution. Few will be found to deny the
+statement that it is a theory which <i>does</i> explain Nature as we see it
+and as we learn its history in the past, but that does not necessarily
+prove that it is true. St. Thomas Aquinas, dealing with the movements of
+the planets, makes a very important statement when he tells us, in so
+many words, that, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> the hypothesis with which he is dealing would
+explain the appearances which he was seeking to explain, that does not
+prove that it is the true explanation, since the real answer to the
+riddle may be one then unknown to him. There are, however, one or two
+points it may be useful to consider before we leave the question.</p>
+
+<p>That evolution may occur within a class seems to be quite certain. The
+case of the Porto Santo rabbits, one of many cited by Darwin or brought
+to knowledge since his time, will make clear what is meant. Porto Santo
+is a small island, not far from Madeira, on which a Portuguese
+navigator, named Zarco, let loose, somewhere about the year 1420, a doe
+and a recently born litter of rabbits, which we may feel quite sure
+belonged to one of those domestic breeds which have all been derived
+from the wild rabbit of Europe known to zoologists as <i>Lepus Cuniculus</i>.
+The island was a favourable spot for the rabbits, for there do not
+appear to have been any carnivorous beasts or birds to harry them, nor
+were there other land mammals competing with them for food; and, as a
+result, we are told that they had so far increased and multiplied in
+forty years as to be described as "innumerable." In four and a half
+centuries these rabbits had become so different from any European
+rabbits that Haeckel described them as a species apart, and named it
+<i>Lepus Huxlei</i>. This rabbit is much smaller than the European form,
+being described as more like a large rat than a rabbit. Its colour is
+very different from its European<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> relatives; it has curious nocturnal
+habits; it is exceedingly wild and untamable. Most remarkable of all,
+and most conclusive as to specific difference, Mr. Bartlett, the highly
+skilled head keeper of the London Zoological Gardens, utterly failed to
+induce the two males which were brought over to those gardens to
+associate with or to breed with the females of various other breeds of
+rabbits which were repeatedly placed with them. If the history of these
+Porto Santo rabbits had been unknown to us, instead of being a matter as
+to which there can be no doubt, every naturalist would at once have
+accepted them as a separate species. We need not hesitate, it appears,
+to do so and to admit that it is a new species which has been produced
+within historic times and under conditions with which we are fully
+acquainted. It may, however, be argued, and quite fairly argued, that
+such a process of evolution, though definitely proved, is a very
+different thing from such an evolution as would permit of a common
+ancestry for animals so far apart, for example, as a whale and a rabbit,
+or perhaps even nearer in relationship, as between a lion and a seal. To
+discuss this further would require a dissertation on the highly involved
+question of species and varieties, and that is not now to be attempted.
+What, however, may be said is that the difficulties presented by what is
+called phylogeny&mdash;that is, the relationships of different classes to one
+another&mdash;are so great as to have led more than one man of science to
+proclaim his belief that evolution has been poly&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>and not
+mono&mdash;phyletic. Such is the view which has been enunciated by Father
+Wasmann, S.J., whose authority on a point of this kind is paramount. It
+has also been upheld by Professor Bateson, a man widely separated from
+the Jesuit in all but attachment to science. Professor Bateson summed up
+his belief in the text which he placed on the title-page of his first
+great work on <i>Variation</i>: the text which proclaims that there is a
+flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin remained to the end of his life undecided between the two views,
+for he allowed his original statement as to life having been breathed
+into one or more forms by the Creator, to pass from edition to edition
+of the <i>Origin of Species</i>. If the polyphyletic theory be adopted, it
+must be said that the position of the materialist is made far more
+difficult than it is at present. Let us see what it means. On the
+materialistic hypothesis, and the same may be said of the pantheistic or
+any other hypothesis not theistic in nature, a certain cell came by
+chance to acquire the attributes of life. From this descended plants and
+animals of all kinds in divergent series till the edifice was crowned by
+man. I have elsewhere endeavoured to point out all that is involved in
+this assumption, which, it must be confessed, is a very large mouthful
+to swallow.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now consider what the polyphyletic hypothesis involves. According
+to this view one cell accidentally developed the attributes of vegetable
+life; a further accident leads another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> cell to initiate the line of
+invertebrates; another that of fishes, let us say; another of mammals:
+the number varying according to the views of the theorist on phylogeny.
+Let us not forget that the cell or cells which accidentally acquired the
+attributes of life, had accidentally to shape themselves from dead
+materials into something of a character wholly unknown in the inorganic
+world. If one seriously considers the matter it is&mdash;so it seems to
+me&mdash;utterly impossible to subscribe to the accidental theory of which
+the immanent god&mdash;the blind god of Bergson&mdash;is a mere variant. One must
+agree with the late Lord Kelvin that "science positively affirms
+creative power ... which (she) compels us to accept as an article of
+belief." But what are we to say with regard to the series of repeated
+accidents which the polyphyletic hypothesis would seem to demand? Is it
+really possible that any man could bring himself to place credence in
+such a marvellous series of occurrences? Monophyletic or polyphyletic
+evolution, whichever, if either, it may have been, presents no
+difficulty on the creation hypothesis.</p>
+
+<p>The Divine plan might have embraced either method. It is not merely
+revelation but ordinary reason which shows us that the wonderful things
+which we know, not to speak of the far more wonderful things at which we
+can only guess, cannot possibly be explained on any other hypothesis
+than that of a Free First Cause&mdash;a Creator.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>The Theory of Evolution.</i> By William Berryman Scott. New
+York: The Macmillan Co.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="VIII_CATHOLIC_WRITERS_AND_SPONTANEOUS_GENERATION" id="VIII_CATHOLIC_WRITERS_AND_SPONTANEOUS_GENERATION"></a>VIII. CATHOLIC WRITERS AND SPONTANEOUS GENERATION</h2>
+
+
+<p>The names of great Catholic men of science, laymen like Pasteur and
+M&uuml;ller, or ecclesiastics like Stensen and Mendel, are familiar to all
+educated persons. But even educated persons, or at least a great
+majority of them, are quite ignorant of the goodly band of workers in
+science who were devout children of the Church. Nothing perhaps more
+fully exemplifies this than the history of the controversy respecting
+the subject whose name is set down as the title of this paper. For
+centuries a controversy raged at intervals around the question of
+spontaneous generation. Did living things originate, not merely in the
+past but every day, from non-living matter? When we consider such things
+as the once mysterious appearance of maggots in meat it is not wonderful
+that in the days before the microscope the answer was in the
+affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>To-day the question may be considered almost closed. True, the negative
+proposition cannot be proved, hence it is impossible to say that
+spontaneous generation does not take place. However, the scientific
+world is at one in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> belief that so far all attempts to prove it have
+failed utterly.</p>
+
+<p>St. Thomas Aquinas had a celebrated and sometimes misunderstood
+controversy with Avicenna, a very famous Arabian philosopher. It was a
+philosophical, but not strictly scientific, controversy, for both
+persons accepted or assumed the existence of spontaneous generation.
+Avicenna claimed that it took place by the powers of Nature alone,
+whilst St. Thomas adopted the attitude which we should adopt to-day,
+were spontaneous generation shown to be a fact, namely, that if Nature
+possessed this power, it was because the Creator had willed it so.</p>
+
+<p>We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668, when
+Francesco Redi (1626-1697) published his book on the generation of
+insects and showed that meat protected from flies by wire gauze or
+parchment did not develop maggots, whilst meat left unprotected did.
+From this and from other experiments he was led to formulate the theory
+that in all cases of apparent production of life from dead matter the
+real explanation was that living germs from outside had been introduced
+into it. For a long time this view held the field. Redi was, as his name
+indicates, an Italian, an inhabitant of Aretino, a poet as well as a
+physician and scientific worker. He was physician to two of the Grand
+Dukes of Tuscany and an academician of the celebrated <i>Accademia della
+Crusca</i>. Those works which I have been able to consult on the subject
+say nothing about his religion, but there can scarcely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> be any doubt
+that he was a Catholic. At any rate there is no doubt whatever as to the
+other persons now to be mentioned in connection with the controversy,
+which again became active about a century after Redi had published his
+book. The antagonists on this occasion were both of them Catholic
+priests, and both of them deserve some brief notice.</p>
+
+<p>John Turberville Needham (1713-1781) was born in London and belonged on
+both sides to old Catholic families. He was educated at Douay and
+ordained priest at Cambray in 1738. After teaching in that place for
+some time he journeyed to England and became head-master of the once
+celebrated school for Catholic boys at Twyford, near Winchester. From
+there he went for a short time to Lisbon as professor of philosophy in
+the English College. Subsequently he travelled with various Peers making
+"the grand tour." After that he retired to Paris, where he was elected a
+member of the <i>Acad&eacute;mie des Sciences</i>. He was the first director of the
+Imperial Academy in Brussels; a canon, first of Dendermonde and
+afterward of Soignies. He died in Brussels and was buried in the Abbey
+of Condenberg. Needham was a man of really great scientific attainments,
+and perhaps nothing proves the estimation in which he was held more than
+the fact that in 1746 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,
+being the first Catholic priest to become a member of that distinguished
+body. When one remembers the attitude at that time, and much later, of
+Englishmen towards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> Catholics it is clear that Needham's claims to
+distinction must have been more than ordinarily great. His clear, firm
+signature is still to be seen in the charter-book of the society, and it
+is interesting to note that he signs his name "Turberville Needham."
+Needham did not confine his attention to science, for he was an ardent
+antiquary, and in 1761 was elected a Fellow of that other ancient and
+exclusive body, the Society of Antiquaries of London. In this connection
+it may be mentioned that Needham published, in 1761, a book which caused
+a great sensation, for he endeavoured to show that he could translate an
+Egyptian inscription by means of Chinese characters; in other words,
+that the forms of writing were germane to one another. He was shown to
+be quite wrong by some of the learned Jesuits of the day, who, with the
+assistance of Chinese men of letters, proved that the resemblances to
+which Needham had called attention were merely superficial.</p>
+
+<p>But our interest now is in his controversy with Spallanzani. Lazaro
+Spallanzani (1729-1799) was born at Scandiano in Modena and educated at
+the Jesuit College at Reggio di Modena. There was some question as to
+his entering the Society; he did not do so, however, but repaired to the
+University of Bologna, where his kinswoman, Laura Bassi, was then
+professor of physics. He became a priest, but devoted his life to
+teaching and experimenting. He must have been something of what we in
+Ireland used to call a "polymath," for he professed at one time or
+another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> in various universities, logic, metaphysics, Greek, and
+finally natural history. He first explained the physics of what children
+call "ducks and drakes" made by flat pebbles on water; laid the
+foundations of meteorology and vulcanology, and is perhaps best of all
+known in connection with what is termed "regeneration" in the earthworm
+and above all in the salamander. His experiments still hold the field in
+a region of study which has vastly extended itself in recent years,
+becoming of prime importance in the vitalistic controversy.</p>
+
+<p>In the dispute, however, with which we are concerned Needham and
+Spallanzani defended opposite positions. The former, as the result of
+his observations, asserted that, in spite of the boiling and sealing up
+of organic fluids, life did appear in them. His opponent claimed that
+Needham's experiments had not been sufficiently precise. The latter had
+enclosed his fluids in bottles fitted with ordinary corks, covered with
+mastic varnish, whilst Spallanzani, employing flasks with long necks
+which he could and did seal by heat when the contents were boiling,
+showed that in that case no life was produced. He declared, and
+correctly too, as we now know, that Needham's methods did permit of the
+introduction of something from without. The controversy went to sleep
+again until the discovery of oxygen by Priestley in 1774. When it had
+been shown that oxygen was essential to the existence of all forms of
+life, the question arose as to whether the boiling of the organic fluids
+in the earlier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> experiments had not expelled all the oxygen and thus
+prevented the existence and development of any life.</p>
+
+<p>In the further experiments which this query gave rise to, we meet with
+another illustrious Catholic name, that of Theodor Schwann, better known
+as the originator of that fundamental piece of scientific knowledge, the
+cell-theory. Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) was born at Neuss and educated
+by the Jesuits, first at Cologne, afterward at Bonn. After studying at
+the Universities of W&uuml;rzburg and Berlin he became professor in the
+Catholic University of Louvain, where his name was one of the principal
+glories of this now wrecked seat of learning. Thence he went as
+professor to Li&eacute;ge, where he died. He was, says his biography in the
+<i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica</i>, "of a peculiarly gentle and amiable character
+and remained a devout Catholic throughout his life." Schwann's
+experiments tended to show that the introduction of air&mdash;of course
+containing oxygen&mdash;did not lead to the production of life, if the air
+had first been thoroughly sterilised. It was thought that this question
+had been finally answered, when it was reopened by Pouchet, in 1859. He
+was a Frenchman, the director of the Natural History Museum of Rouen,
+but as to his religious views I have no information. It is quite
+probable, however, that he was a Catholic. Pouchet and all on his side
+were finally&mdash;so far as there can be finality in such a matter&mdash;disposed
+of by Pasteur, of whose distinction as a man of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> science and devoutness
+as a Catholic nothing need be said.</p>
+
+<p>It is quite unnecessary to devote any consideration here to the
+character of Pasteur's experiments, for they have become a matter of
+common knowledge to all educated persons. Let it suffice to say that
+they were on the lines first laid down by Redi and greatly elaborated by
+Spallanzani, namely the exclusion from the fluids or other substances
+under examination of all possible contamination by minute organisms in
+the air. Spallanzani knew nothing of these organisms; they were not
+discovered until many years after his death. But he surmised that there
+was something which brought corruption into the fluids; he excluded that
+something, with the result that the fluids remained untainted. From our
+point of view, however, there are several things to be learnt. In the
+first place quite a number of ignorant persons have thought that the
+discovery of spontaneous generation would upset religious dogmata. That
+of course is quite absurd. From what has been said above it will be seen
+that St. Thomas Aquinas&mdash;in common with all the men of learning of his
+day&mdash;fully believed in it, as did Needham, another ecclesiastic as to
+whose orthodoxy there is no doubt. Further, the entire controversy is a
+complete confutation of the false allegation that between Catholicism
+and science there is a great gulf set. There have been few longer and
+more remarkable controversies in the history of science, and scarce any
+other&mdash;if indeed any other&mdash;which has such important bearings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> upon
+health and industry than that which relates to bio- or abio-genesis. It
+is significant to find that the names of so many of the protagonists in
+this controversy were those of men who were also convinced adherents of
+the Catholic Church.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="IX_A_THEORY_OF_LIFE" id="IX_A_THEORY_OF_LIFE"></a>IX. A THEORY OF LIFE<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>Of the making of books on the question of Vitalism there would seem to
+be no end; and, following upon quite a number of others comes this
+handsome, well-illustrated, intensely interesting book, by one whose
+writings are always worth study. It purports to deal with the Origin and
+Evolution of Life; but, as to the first, it leaves us in no way advanced
+towards any real explanation of that problem on materialistic lines. As
+to the second, though there is a vast amount of valuable information,
+often illuminating and suggestive, again we confess that we fail to
+discover any real philosophy of that process of evolution which the
+author postulates. These propositions we must now proceed to justify. We
+can consider them from the most rigidly scientific standpoint, since, if
+every word or almost every word in the book were proved truth, it would
+not make the slightest difference to Catholic Philosophy, nor, indeed,
+to Theistic teachings, since in the imperishable words of Paley: "There
+may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind
+another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> between what we observe of nature and the Deity; but there
+must be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what
+we see; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an intelligent
+designing Author."</p>
+
+<p>The scientific writer has to remember that whilst he may explain many
+things, his work is a torso unless and until he has either accepted the
+Creator as the first Cause, which he is too often disinclined to do, or
+has supplied an equally satisfactory explanation, which he is
+permanently unable to do. On the other hand, at least some defenders of
+Theism in the past might well have borne in mind that, whilst we are
+assured of the fact of Creation, we know absolutely nothing of its
+mechanism save that it came about by the command of God. There is
+nothing in which clear thinking and clear writing are more necessary
+than in discussions of this kind; and too many of them are vitiated by
+an obvious lack of philosophical training on the part of the
+participants. Even in this carefully written book there are instances of
+this kind of thing to which we must allude before considering its main
+arguments.</p>
+
+<p>"We know, for example, that there has existed a more or less complete
+chain of beings from monad to man, that the one-toed horse had a
+four-toed ancestor, that man has descended from an unknown ape-like form
+somewhere in the Tertiary." "We <i>know</i>"&mdash;that is exactly the opposite of
+the truth. We <i>know</i> a thing when it is susceptible of proof according
+to the rigid rules of formal logic; when, to doubt it, would be to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> give
+rise to a suspicion as to our sanity; then we <i>know</i> a thing, but not
+until then. Now, as to the sentence quoted, we may allow the first part
+to pass unchallenged with some possible demur at the use of the word
+"chain." The second so-called piece of knowledge was doubted by no less
+an authority than the late Adam Sedgwick. The third assertion plainly
+and distinctly is not the case; for Science <i>knows</i> nothing whatsoever
+about the origin of man's body. In 1901 Branco, a distinguished
+pal&aelig;ontologist, with no Theistic leanings as far as we know, told the
+world that man appears on our planet as "a genuine <i>homo novus</i>," and
+that pal&aelig;ontology "knows no ancestors of man." Nor has any discovery
+since that date necessitated the modification of that opinion. What the
+writer means by saying "<i>We</i> know" is "<i>I</i> am convinced"; but, with the
+deepest respect for his undoubted position, the two things are not quite
+identical. "Biology, like theology, has its dogmas. Leaders have their
+disciples and blind followers." Wise words! They are those of the author
+with whom we are dealing. To say "we know" when really we only surmise
+is a misuse of language, just as it is also a misuse to ask the question
+"Does nature make a departure from its previously ordered procedure and
+substitute chance for law?" since the ordinary reader is all too apt to
+forget that "Nature" is a mere abstraction, and that to speak of Nature
+doing such or such a thing helps us in no way along the road towards an
+explanation of things.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Or again: "So far as the <i>creative</i> power of energy is concerned, we are
+on sure ground." The author has a careful note on the word creation (p.
+5), "the production of something new out of nothing," under which
+definition it is abundantly clear that energy, whilst it may be
+<i>productive</i>, cannot be <i>creative</i>. In fact, nothing can be <i>creative</i>
+in any definite and rigid sense, save a <i>Creator</i> Who existed from all
+eternity and from Whom all things arose. One more instance of loose
+argumentation, and we can turn to the main purport of the book. It is a
+link in the author's "chain" which cannot be passed without examination.
+Everybody is familiar with the method of proof by elimination. We set
+down every possible explanation of a certain occurrence; we rule out one
+after the other until but one is left. If we really have set down all
+the possible explanations, and if we are quite clear as to the fact that
+all those which have been excluded are legitimately put out of court,
+then the one remaining explanation must be the true one. It is a method
+of proof which has frequently been applied to the vitalistic problem,
+and with the greatest effect, as it is admitted by some of those who
+would greatly like to find a materialistic explanation for that problem
+(cf. <i>The Philosophy of Biology</i>, Johnstone, p. 319).</p>
+
+<p>Let us see how our author employs it. What, he asks, is "the internal
+moving principle" in living substance? And he replies: "We may first
+exclude the possibility that it acts either through supernatural or
+teleological interposition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> through an externally creative power." Very
+well! Philosophers tell us that we can assume any position we choose for
+the purposes of our argument, but that ultimately we must prove that
+assumption or admit ourselves beaten. We look anxiously for the proof of
+the assumption made by our author, but absolutely no attempt is made to
+give one. We must be pardoned, therefore, if we hesitate to accept such
+an important statement on his mere <i>ipse dixit</i>. We pass on to the next
+elimination: "Although its visible results are in a high degree
+purposeful, we may also exclude as unscientific the vitalistic theory of
+an <i>entelechy</i><a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> or any other form of internal perfecting agency
+distinct from known or unknown physio-chemical energies." Why
+"unscientific"? Numbers of high authorities have not thought it so; and
+in quite recent years such eminent writers as Driesch and McDougal have
+written erudite works to prove this "unscientific" hypothesis. Is there
+any proof brought forward for <i>this</i> assertion and its corresponding
+elimination?</p>
+
+<p>Let us continue the quotation: "Since certain forms of adaptation which
+were formerly mysterious can now be explained without the assumption of
+an entelechy we are encouraged to hope that all forms may be thus
+explained." The author does not tell us what the mysterious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> adaptations
+are, nor does he offer us the explanations which, in his opinion,
+explain them. We cannot, therefore, criticise his views, and can only
+remind his readers that, because an explanation plausibly explains an
+occurrence, it is by no means always therefore certain to be the true
+explanation; it may, indeed, be wholly false.</p>
+
+<p>Further, those who have been wandering for the past half-century in the
+fields of science have become a little wearied of "explanations,"
+vaunted, for periods of five or ten years, as the key to open all locks,
+and then cast into the furnace. What the author would seem to mean by
+his statement is this: "I am convinced myself that we can do without a
+'supernatural' explanation, and I regard as 'unscientific' any
+explanation which cannot be put to the test of chemistry and physics;
+hence I must shut the door on anything like an <i>entelechy</i>, and, that
+being so, it behoves me to look for some other explanation." Of course,
+we are putting these words into the mouth of our author; if we were
+dealing with the matter ourselves we should be inclined to argue that,
+by the eliminatory method, chemistry and physics do prove, or do help to
+prove, the existence of an entelechy.</p>
+
+<p>With these expostulations we may turn to the writer's pronouncements on
+the vitalistic question which seem to us to be worthy of serious
+consideration. Everybody knows that there are two very diverse opinions
+on this topic; the one that there is, the other that there is not
+something more&mdash;a <i>plus</i>&mdash;in living than there is in not-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>living
+objects. In other words, that there is a difference of kind, and not
+merely of degree, between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the schools of
+thought called vitalistic and mechanistic. To most persons it has up to
+now seemed impossible that there could be a third school; we appeared to
+be confronted with what the logicians call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn
+seems to us to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear on this
+matter. If we are to "reject the vitalistic hypotheses of the ancient
+Greeks, and the modern vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others,"
+and if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he thinks we must, the
+cosmos as one of "limitless and <i>ordered</i> energy"&mdash;we have emphasised
+the word "<i>ordered</i>" for reasons which will shortly appear&mdash;we must
+clearly look out for some middle way. "<i>Ordered</i>," a purely mechanistic
+and materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. "<i>Ordered</i>" conditions
+are determined by what we agree to call "Laws"; and these, as all must
+admit, entail a Lawgiver.</p>
+
+<p>The alternative is Blind Chance; and the author, after considering the
+question, agrees, as again most reasonable persons will agree, that
+Blind Chance is no explanation of things as they are. He quotes a modern
+chemist who, discussing the probability of the environmental fitness of
+the earth for life being a mere chance process, remarks: "There is, in
+truth, not one chance in countless millions of millions that the many
+unique properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and especially of
+their stable compounds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make up
+the atmosphere of a new planet, should simultaneously occur in the three
+elements otherwise than through the operation of a natural law which
+somehow connects them together. There is no greater probability that
+these unique properties should be without due cause uniquely favourable
+to the organic mechanism" (J. J. Henderson, 1913).</p>
+
+<p>If neither of the classic points of view is tenable, what then is the
+explanation, if, indeed, any be possible? The author casts one brief
+glance down that blind-alley marked "Element Way." Does some known
+element or some unknown element, to which the name <i>Bion</i> might be
+given, exist and form the source of the energy in living things? Radium
+has only been known to us for a few years; can we say that there is no
+such thing as Bion? Of course we cannot; but this we can say, that, if
+there is such an element and if it is really responsible for all the
+protean manifestations of life, wonderful as radium and its doings are,
+they must sink into nothingness beside those of this new and unsuspected
+entity. The author evidently does not think that this path is a
+profitable one to pursue, and we agree with him; so he turns his
+attention to the question of energy. Energy is the capacity for doing
+work. It is often, of course, latent, as, for example, in a cordite
+cartridge, which is a peaceful, harmless thing until the energy stored
+up in it is realised with the accompanying explosion and work is done.
+It is the same with a bent spring;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> a clock-weight when the clock is not
+going, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>We need not develop this matter further; but one point must be alluded
+to, namely, the gradual exhaustion of the available energy in the
+changes from one manifestation to another. In all physical processes
+heat is evolved, which heat is distributed by conduction and radiation
+and tends to become universally diffused throughout space. When complete
+uniformity has been attained, all physical phenomena will come to an
+end; in other words, our solar system must come to an end, and it must
+have had a beginning. It is a well-known argument. Is there anything to
+rewind the clock which is running down before our very eyes? It was once
+urged that stellar collisions, and such-like things, might permit us to
+postulate a cyclical arrangement (and thus rearrangement) of universal
+phenomena; but that hypothesis does not seem to find any supporters
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>In his interesting book, already mentioned, Dr. Johnstone called
+attention to the power possessed by living matter of reversing the
+process; but no reversal of this kind and extent can make up for the
+constant degradation of energy which is taking place all round us. We
+mention this because it shows that "energy" cannot, in any case, afford
+an eternal solution, but only a temporal and therefore a limited one. No
+one doubts that there is energy in the living thing, nor that there are
+what the author calls "complexes of energies." No one, again, will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+quarrel with the statement that energy is first seen in the sun, in the
+earth, in the air, and in the water; that "with life something new
+appears in the universe, namely, a union of the internal and external
+adjustment of energy which we appropriately call an <i>Organism</i>." That
+"the germ is an energy complex" is no doubt an unproved hypothesis, as
+he admits, but is quite likely. With all these assertions we may agree,
+though we cannot with that which follows, namely, that energy is
+creative, for that such is impossible in any true sense of that word we
+have already tried to show.</p>
+
+<p>We have now to ask ourselves in what way this energy conception of life
+differs from, or goes beyond, the two theories of life&mdash;mechanistic and
+vitalistic, which have hitherto been supposed to have exhausted the
+possibilities of explanation. In order to do this we must analyse the
+author's idea of energy and its relationship to biological processes a
+little more closely. He begins his study of life and its evolution by
+considering how nutrition and the derivation of energy can have taken
+place before chlorophyl had come into existence; and he very pertinently
+points to the <i>prototrophic</i> bacteria as probably representing "the
+survival of a primordial stage of life chemistry." Thus a "primitive
+feeder," the bacterium <i>Nitrosomonas</i>, "for combustion ... takes in
+oxygen directly through the intermediate action of iron, phosphorus or
+manganese, each of the single cells being a powerful little chemical
+laboratory which contains oxidising catalysers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> the activity of which
+is accelerated by the presence of iron and manganese. Still, in the
+primordial stage, <i>Nitrosomonas</i> lives on ammonium sulphate, taking its
+energy (food) from the nitrogen of ammonium and forming nitrates. Living
+symbiotically with it is <i>Nitrobacter</i>, which takes its energy (food)
+from the nitrates formed by <i>Nitrosomonas</i>, oxidising them into
+nitrates. Thus these two species illustrate in its simplest form our law
+of the <i>interaction of an organism</i> (<i>Nitrobacter</i>) <i>with its life
+environment</i> (<i>Nitrosomonas</i>)" (p. 82, author's italics).</p>
+
+<p>Once one has got to this stage, it is <i>ex hypothesi</i> easy to ascend
+through the vegetable and animal worlds and to formulate the various
+laws which appear to have shaped the evolution of life and of species.
+We are then "within the system," but to arrive at anything worthy of the
+name of an explanation we have first to <i>get</i> within the system. Even
+then there remains over the task of explaining how the system comes to
+be there to get inside of. The writer talks of his example as "the
+simplest form." Yet, in his own words, it is a "<i>powerful little
+chemical laboratory</i>," well stocked with catalysers and other potent
+means for carrying on its work. "Simple"! Well, no doubt comparatively
+simple, but in reality complex almost beyond the power of words to
+describe. "A chemical laboratory"! Yes; and one which performs most
+delicate operations. "Well stocked with catalysers"! And what are they?
+Most wonderful things which induce change without themselves undergoing
+any;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> discoveries of quite recent date as to which we still know but
+little. "Simple" seems hardly the word to apply, save in strict relation
+to other and higher forms. How did this laboratory come into existence?
+In what way did it learn to do its work? How did catalysers come to be?
+Was all this mere chance-medley? It is Paley's example of the watch
+found on the heath once more. Does it help us in any way to talk about
+"energy" and "complexes" of energy and "the creative force of energy"?
+To us it does not seem to advance matters one little bit. Either these
+operations of <i>Nitrosomonas</i> are determined or they are not; either they
+are the result of a law or they are the result of blind chance; in
+either case the energy which is involved must act according to the
+conditions ordered or not ordered. In other words: if it is the dominant
+factor, as the writer would lead us to suppose; if there is "direction,"
+then the action of energy must be directive; and, if it is directive, in
+what possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old <i>entelechy</i>
+or <i>vital principle</i>, or whatever else one may choose to call it? On the
+other hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything
+happens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy
+save us from complete surrender to that theory?</p>
+
+<p>From all this it would appear that whilst energy is constantly being
+exhibited (and in all sorts of manifestations) by the living object,
+that does not explain anything, since it does not explain how energy
+originally came to be, nor how it came to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> work under the laws which
+seem to govern it. It is one more added to the long list of
+"explanations," which hopelessly break down because those who have put
+them forward have never apparently applied themselves to the task of
+grasping the important difference between a final and an intermediate
+cause.</p>
+
+<p>Let us sum up this part of our author's teaching in the light of this
+distinction. The organism is a material complex, and all sorts of
+actions and reactions take place in it. They are subject to the laws of
+physics, and notably to those relating to energy and its
+transformations. It has internal energies which must be adjusted to one
+another and not less to those around it; that is to say, it must be more
+or less in harmony with its environment. There are the problems of
+germ-plasm, and its transmission; the effect on it, if any, of the body,
+and the reaction of the body to its environment. There are also the
+catalysers of which we have spoken, with many problems associated with
+them, and throwing a possible and unexpected light on the vexed question
+of Vitalism and the Conservation of Energy. There are all these things,
+manifestations of energy; there is the watch, and it is going. But, as
+we remarked elsewhere, the fact that we have learned that the resiliency
+of the spring in the watch makes it "go" does not exhaust the
+explanation of the watch any more than the fact that we know something
+of the actions and reactions of energy in the organism exhausts its
+explanation. The watch is "going"; so is the organism. Each of them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> in
+a sense, is a "wonderful little laboratory" in which manifestations of
+energy are constantly taking place. The watchmaker constructed the watch
+for that purpose; who or what constructed the organism? Darwin and the
+Darwinians would have said&mdash;Natural Selection. In fact, Darwin rather
+lamented that "the old argument from design in nature, as given by
+Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails now that
+the law of Natural Selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue
+that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have
+been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man.
+There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings,
+and in the action of Natural Selection, than in the course which the
+wind blows." There again Darwin fell into a mistake, because he confused
+an intermediate with a final cause. Even if Natural Selection were all
+that the most ultra-Darwinian could claim it to be, it could not, as
+Driesch and others have shown, exhaust the explanation of the organism.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact the world of science is very far from thinking of
+Natural Selection as anything more than a factor, perhaps even a minor
+factor, in evolution. The author of the work with which we are dealing
+tells us that "Darwin's law of selection as a natural explanation of the
+origin of <i>all</i> fitness in form and function has lost its prestige at
+the present time, and all of Darwinism which now meets with universal
+acceptance is the <i>law of the survival of the fittest</i>, a limited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+application of Darwin's great idea as expressed by Herbert Spencer." But
+let that pass. In another place the author makes it clear that the
+explanations of to-day, including his own, do <i>not</i> exhaust the subject,
+for he says "it is incumbent on us to discover the <i>cause</i> of the
+orderly origin of every character. The nature of such a law we cannot
+even dream of at present, for the causes of the majority of vertebrate
+adaptations remain wholly unknown." In any case we must account for
+Natural Selection; for if it is a Law&mdash;as some doubt&mdash;it must have had a
+Lawgiver. The watch must have been an Idea in some one's mind before it
+became an accomplished fact, and Natural Selection or any other "Law of
+Nature" must&mdash;unless all reason is nonsense and all nonsense
+reason&mdash;also have been an Idea before it became a factor. Whose Idea?
+Our author does not help us to answer this question. On the contrary&mdash;he
+tries to set an unclimbable fence in the way of any answer by telling
+us, though without any convincing argument to support his statement,
+that we may "exclude the possibility that it" [the internal moving
+principle] "acts either through supernatural or teleological
+interposition through an externally creative power." But though he
+refuses to allow us to look in this direction for a solution of our
+difficulties, it must be confessed that he does not help us with any
+other answer satisfying the question of the origin and evolution of
+Life.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>The Origin and Evolution of Life; or, the Theory of
+Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy.</i> By F. H. Osborn. (G. Bell
+&amp; Sons.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> By <i>entelechy</i>&mdash;an Aristotelian term re-introduced by
+Driesch&mdash;is meant an agency other than one of a purely chemico-physical
+character, which differentiates living from not-living substance, and is
+responsible for the phenomenon of life.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="INDEX_OF_NAMES" id="INDEX_OF_NAMES"></a>INDEX OF NAMES</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<p class="noindent">
+
+Agassiz, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a><br />
+<br />
+Allen, Grant, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a><br />
+<br />
+Aquinas, St. Thomas, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a><br />
+<br />
+Austen, Miss, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a><br />
+<br />
+Avicenna, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., <a href='#Page_116'>116</a><br />
+<br />
+Bassi, Laura, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a><br />
+<br />
+Bateson, W., F.R.S., <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a><br />
+<br />
+Bax, Belfort, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a><br />
+<br />
+Benson, Mgr., <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a><br />
+<br />
+Bergson, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a><br />
+<br />
+Bernhardi, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a><br />
+<br />
+Borden, Sir Robert, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a><br />
+<br />
+Branco, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a><br />
+<br />
+Buffon, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a><br />
+<br />
+Butler, Samuel <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Chesterton, G. K., <a href='#Page_113'>113</a><br />
+<br />
+Clodd, E., <a href='#Page_86'>86</a><br />
+<br />
+Conklyn, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a><br />
+<br />
+Cowper, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a><br />
+<br />
+Crichton-Browne, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a><br />
+<br />
+Cuvier, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Darwin, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a><br />
+<br />
+Devas, Mr. <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a><br />
+<br />
+Dewar, Prof. Sir J., F.R.S., <a href='#Page_113'>113</a><br />
+<br />
+Doyle, Sir A. C., <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a><br />
+<br />
+Driesch, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Fallopius, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a><br />
+<br />
+Fielding, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Gosse, E., <a href='#Page_39'>39</a><br />
+<br />
+Gosse, Philip, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a><br />
+<br />
+Grant Allen, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Healy, Father&mdash;Tale of, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a><br />
+<br />
+Henderson, J. J., <a href='#Page_167'>167</a><br />
+<br />
+Henslow, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a><br />
+<br />
+Hull, Fr. E., S.J., <a href='#Page_103'>103</a><br />
+<br />
+Huxley, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Johnson, Dr. 48, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a><br />
+<br />
+Joly, Prof., F.R.S., <a href='#Page_110'>110</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+<br />
+<br />
+Kelvin, Lord, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Lankester, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a><br />
+<br />
+Lauder, Harry, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a><br />
+<br />
+Leduc, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a><br />
+<br />
+Lodge, Sir O., <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a><br />
+<br />
+Loeb, J,. <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a><br />
+<br />
+Lucas, E. V., on the War, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Mcdougal, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a><br />
+<br />
+Mahaffy, Sir John, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a><br />
+<br />
+Marett, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a><br />
+<br />
+Masefield, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a><br />
+<br />
+Mendel, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a><br />
+<br />
+Milton, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a><br />
+<br />
+Mivart, Prof., <a href='#Page_96'>96</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Needham, John Turberville, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a><br />
+<br />
+Newman, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a><br />
+<br />
+Newton, The Rev. J., <a href='#Page_38'>38</a><br />
+<br />
+Nietzsche, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Osborne, Prof., <a href='#Page_160'>160</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Paley, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a><br />
+<br />
+Pasteur, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a><br />
+<br />
+Perkin, Prof. W. H., <a href='#Page_107'>107</a><br />
+<br />
+Pouchet, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a><br />
+<br />
+Priestley, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Redi, Francisco, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a><br />
+<br />
+Richardson, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a><br />
+<br />
+Rignano, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a><br />
+<br />
+Ryder, Dr., <a href='#Page_51'>51</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Sabatier, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a><br />
+<br />
+Schwann, Theodor, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a><br />
+<br />
+Scott, Prof., <a href='#Page_142'>142</a><br />
+<br />
+Scott, The Rev. Thomas, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a><br />
+<br />
+Sedgwick, Adam, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a><br />
+<br />
+Spallanzani, Lazaro, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a><br />
+<br />
+Stensen, Nicolaus, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Tilden, Sir William, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a><br />
+<br />
+Tyson, Edward, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Wasmann, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a><br />
+<br />
+Wells, H. G., <a href='#Page_49'>49</a><br />
+<br />
+Whiffen, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="GENERAL_INDEX" id="GENERAL_INDEX"></a>GENERAL INDEX</h2>
+
+
+<div class="index">
+<p class="noindent">
+Adam, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a><br />
+<br />
+Adrenals, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a><br />
+<br />
+"After-Christians," <a href='#Page_120'>120</a><br />
+<br />
+Aggressive mimicry, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a><br />
+<br />
+Albino race, An, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a><br />
+<br />
+Amazonian Indians, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a><br />
+<br />
+"Anatomie of a Pygmie," <a href='#Page_77'>77</a><br />
+<br />
+Ancestral peculiarities, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a><br />
+<br />
+Aniline dyes, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a><br />
+<br />
+Arrangement, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Bacteria, Prototrophic, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a><br />
+<br />
+Badische Aniline Fabrik, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a><br />
+<br />
+Bathybius, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a><br />
+<br />
+Bion, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a><br />
+<br />
+Blind Chance, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a><br />
+<br />
+Bondage of Knowledge, The, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a><br />
+<br />
+Botanic Garden, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a><br />
+<br />
+Breeding Committees, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a><br />
+<br />
+Breeding True, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a><br />
+<br />
+Bricks and Builders, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a><br />
+<br />
+"Bugbear of Hell," <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Calvinism, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a><br />
+<br />
+Cartesian idea of the soul, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a><br />
+<br />
+Catalysts, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a><br />
+<br />
+Celibacy, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a><br />
+<br />
+Cell-Theory, The, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a><br />
+<br />
+Chance-Medley, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a><br />
+<br />
+Chromatin, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a><br />
+<br />
+Colloids, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a><br />
+<br />
+"Continuity," <a href='#Page_46'>46</a><br />
+<br />
+Conversion, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a><br />
+<br />
+Cowardice, Alleged, of Catholic Scientists, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a><br />
+<br />
+Creation, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a method of, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></span><br />
+<br />
+"Criticisms on the Pentateuch," <a href='#Page_45'>45</a><br />
+<br />
+"Cutting up of Frogs," <a href='#Page_115'>115</a><br />
+<br />
+Cytolysis, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+<br />
+<br />
+"Dabney, Mr.," <a href='#Page_47'>47</a><br />
+<br />
+Defence of the Realm Act, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a><br />
+<br />
+Degradation of Energy, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a><br />
+<br />
+Derivative Creation, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a><br />
+<br />
+Discontinuity, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a><br />
+<br />
+"Ducks and Drakes," <a href='#Page_156'>156</a><br />
+<br />
+Duck's Egg, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a><br />
+<br />
+Dye-stuffs, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Elimination, Proof by, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a><br />
+<br />
+Energy, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a><br />
+<br />
+Energy, Degradation of, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a><br />
+<br />
+Entelechy, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a><br />
+<br />
+Eskimo, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a><br />
+<br />
+"Esmond," <a href='#Page_31'>31</a><br />
+<br />
+"Essays and Reviews," <a href='#Page_45'>45</a><br />
+<br />
+Eugenics, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a><br />
+<br />
+Evangelicanism, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a><br />
+<br />
+Exhibitions, International, of 1851 and 1862, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a><br />
+<br />
+Extermination of the Less Fit, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Families, Restricted, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a><br />
+<br />
+"Father and Son," <a href='#Page_39'>39</a><br />
+<br />
+"Force and Energy, a Theory of Dynamics," <a href='#Page_85'>85</a><br />
+<br />
+"Force of Truth, The," <a href='#Page_38'>38</a><br />
+<br />
+Formaldehyde, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a><br />
+<br />
+Fossils, Explanation of, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a><br />
+<br />
+Free First Cause, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a><br />
+<br />
+Freethinkers and "tolerance, justice, and gentleness," <a href='#Page_73'>73</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Germination, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a><br />
+<br />
+Guide, the Church a, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Hapsburg lip, The, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a><br />
+<br />
+Harmonious-Equipotential System, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a><br />
+<br />
+Heredity in the Law Courts, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a><br />
+<br />
+Hormones, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a><br />
+<br />
+Horse, Pedigree of the, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+<br />
+<br />
+Imprimatur, The, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a><br />
+<br />
+In-and-in breeding, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a><br />
+<br />
+Index Prohibitorius, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a><br />
+<br />
+Industrial Scientific Research, Department of, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a><br />
+<br />
+Inheritance:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chemical theory, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mnemic theory, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Particulate theories, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Jack, Jill, and Joan, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a><br />
+<br />
+Jungle, The law of, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+King-crabs, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Lamp-shells, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a><br />
+<br />
+Law and Heredity, The, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a><br />
+<br />
+Law and Lawgiver, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a><br />
+<br />
+Law of Nature, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a><br />
+<br />
+Law's "Serious Call," <a href='#Page_31'>31</a><br />
+<br />
+Liberty, personal, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a><br />
+<br />
+"Life and Habit," <a href='#Page_61'>61</a><br />
+<br />
+Life, Origin of, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a><br />
+<br />
+"Little Dorrit," <a href='#Page_112'>112</a><br />
+<br />
+"Loss and Gain," <a href='#Page_33'>33</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Maggots in meat, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a><br />
+<br />
+Man's pedigree, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a><br />
+<br />
+"Marriage," <a href='#Page_49'>49</a><br />
+<br />
+Mauve, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a><br />
+<br />
+Mediate Creation, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a><br />
+<br />
+Memory, unconscious, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a><br />
+<br />
+Mendelism, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a><br />
+<br />
+Method of Creation, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a><br />
+<br />
+Micromeristic theories, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a><br />
+<br />
+Mimicry, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a><br />
+<br />
+Mnemic Theory of Inheritance, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a><br />
+<br />
+Monastic Orders, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a><br />
+<br />
+Monophyletic evolution, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a><br />
+<br />
+"Multitude and Solitude," <a href='#Page_48'>48</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Naturalism and Agnosticism," <a href='#Page_57'>57</a><br />
+<br />
+Natural Selection, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a><br />
+<br />
+"Nature does this," <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a><br />
+<br />
+Nature's insurgent son, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+<br />
+"New Republic, The," <a href='#Page_56'>56</a><br />
+<br />
+"New Revelation, The," <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a><br />
+<br />
+Nitrobacter, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a><br />
+<br />
+Novels and Novelists, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Occam's" razor, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a><br />
+<br />
+Occultism, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a><br />
+<br />
+Ordered energy, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a><br />
+<br />
+"Organism as a whole," <a href='#Page_38'>38</a><br />
+<br />
+Origin of Species, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a><br />
+<br />
+"Over Bemertons," <a href='#Page_47'>47</a><br />
+<br />
+Oxford Movement, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Pamela," <a href='#Page_32'>32</a><br />
+<br />
+Pangenesis, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a><br />
+<br />
+Pantheism, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a><br />
+<br />
+"Paradise Lost," <a href='#Page_145'>145</a><br />
+<br />
+"Parson Adams," <a href='#Page_31'>31</a><br />
+<br />
+Particulate Theories of Inheritance, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a><br />
+<br />
+Personal Liberty, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a><br />
+<br />
+"Philosophy of Biology, The," <a href='#Page_163'>163</a><br />
+<br />
+Phylogeny, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a><br />
+<br />
+Plymouth Brethren, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a><br />
+<br />
+Political leaders of the day, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a><br />
+<br />
+Polyphyletic hypothesis, The, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a><br />
+<br />
+Porto Santo rabbits, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a><br />
+<br />
+Post-Christians, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a><br />
+<br />
+Prototrophic bacteria, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a><br />
+<br />
+Providentissimus Deus, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a><br />
+<br />
+Pugs and Greyhounds, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a><br />
+<br />
+Purposefulness: a strange confession as to, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Raymond," <a href='#Page_51'>51</a><br />
+<br />
+Resiliency, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a><br />
+<br />
+Restricted families, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Sabbatarianism, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a><br />
+<br />
+Salaries of Scientific Teachers, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a><br />
+<br />
+Saurians, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a><br />
+<br />
+Science, Catholic Men of, <a href='#Page_75'>75-6</a><br />
+<br />
+Science, Neglect of, at Schools, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a><br />
+<br />
+Sin, Mythical Ideas of, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a><br />
+<br />
+Six-fingered race, A, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a><br />
+<br />
+Slavery in the State, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+<br />
+"Slime of the Earth," <a href='#Page_146'>146</a><br />
+<br />
+"Social Vermin," <a href='#Page_118'>118</a><br />
+<br />
+"Some Revelations as to 'Raymond,'" <a href='#Page_53'>53</a><br />
+<br />
+Special Creation, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a><br />
+<br />
+Spermatozoon, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a><br />
+<br />
+Spiritualism and the War, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a><br />
+<br />
+Spontaneous Generation, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a><br />
+<br />
+Springs in the watch, The, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a><br />
+<br />
+"Stinks Men," <a href='#Page_110'>110</a><br />
+<br />
+Survival of the Fittest, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a><br />
+<br />
+Syngamy, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a><br />
+<br />
+Synthetic drugs, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Telepathy, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a><br />
+<br />
+Teratomata, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a><br />
+<br />
+Theophobia, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a><br />
+<br />
+Thermos flask, The, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a><br />
+<br />
+"Throws back," <a href='#Page_128'>128</a><br />
+<br />
+Trilobites, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a><br />
+<br />
+Trinity College, Dublin, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a><br />
+<br />
+"Tyranny" of the Church, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Uncle Remus and the rabbit's tail, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a><br />
+<br />
+Unconscious Memory, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a><br />
+<br />
+Universities, Medi&aelig;val, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Vitalism and Anti-Vitalism, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"Way of All Flesh, The," <a href='#Page_44'>44</a><br />
+<br />
+"Wisdom, Book of," <a href='#Page_123'>123</a><br />
+<br />
+Wolff's Experiment, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="center">PRINTED BY<br />
+HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,<br />
+LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="trans_note">
+<p class="center"><big>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</big></p>
+<p class="noindent">
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have
+been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#Page_85">page 85</a> typo corrected: research, without first acertaining[ascertaining] what others have done in that direction<br />
+<br />
+<a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">Footnote 32</a> typo corrected: Princetown[Princeton] University Press, 1915.<br />
+<br />
+<a href="#Page_136">page 136</a> typo corrected: typo corrected: according to the old dilemna.[dilemma]<br />
+<br />
+<a href="#Page_153">page 153</a> typo corrected: when Franceso[Francesco] Redi (1626-1697)<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Science and Morals and Other Essays, by 
+Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Science and Morals and Other Essays, by
+Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Science and Morals and Other Essays
+
+Author: Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
+Release Date: February 25, 2008 [EBook #24684]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE, MORALS, OTHER ESSAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND MORALS
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND MORALS
+AND OTHER ESSAYS
+
+BY
+
+SIR BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE
+
+M.A., M.D., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., K.S.G.
+OF ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE, TORONTO, ONT.
+
+
+LONDON
+BURNS & OATES, LTD
+28 ORCHARD STREET, W
+1919
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO
+
+JOHN ROBERT and MARY O'CONNELL
+
+A TOKEN OF SINCERE FRIENDSHIP
+
+LISTARKIN
+  September 1919
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These Essays have all in one form or another appeared elsewhere; and I
+have to thank the Editors of the _Dublin Review_, _Catholic World_,
+_America_, and _Studies_ respectively for kind permission to reproduce
+them. Some of them appear as they were published, others have been
+almost rewritten.
+
+          B. C. A. W.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                    PAGE
+
+   I. Science and Morals                               1
+     Sec. 1. The Gospel of Science                        1
+     Sec. 2. Science as a Rule of Life                   14
+
+  II. Theophobia and Nemesis                          26
+     Sec. 1. Theophobia: its Cause                       26
+     Sec. 2. Theophobia: its Nemesis                     44
+
+ III. Within and Without the System                   56
+
+  IV. Science in "Bondage"                            74
+
+   V. Science and the War                            106
+
+  VI. Heredity and "Arrangement"                     125
+
+ VII. "Special Creation"                             142
+
+VIII. Catholic Writers and Spontaneous Generation    152
+
+  IX. A Theory of Life                               160
+
+      Index of Names                                 175
+
+      General Index                                  177
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+SCIENCE AND MORALS
+
+
+
+
+I. SCIENCE AND MORALS
+
+
+Sec. 1. THE GOSPEL OF SCIENCE
+
+In the days before the war the Annual Address delivered by the President
+of the British Association was wont to excite at least a mild interest
+in the breasts of the reading public. It was a kind of Encyclical from
+the reigning pontiff of science, and since that potentate changed every
+year there was some uncertainty as to his subject and its treatment, and
+there was this further piquant attraction, wanting in other and
+better-known Encyclicals, that the address of one year might not merely
+contradict but might even exhibit a lofty contempt for that or for those
+which had immediately preceded it.
+
+During the three years immediately preceding the war we had excellent
+examples of all these things. In the first of them we were treated to a
+somewhat belated utterance in opposition to Vitalism. Its arguments were
+mostly based upon what even to the tyro in chemistry seemed to be rather
+shaky foundations. Such indeed they proved to be, since the deductions
+drawn from the behaviour of colloids and from Leduc's pretty toys were
+promptly disclaimed by leading chemists in the course of the few days
+after the delivery of the address.
+
+Further, the President for the year 1914 in his address (Melbourne, p.
+18)[1] told us that the problem of the origin of life, which, let us
+remind ourselves, in the 1912 address was on the point of solution,
+"still stands outside the range of scientific investigation," and that
+when the spontaneous formation of formaldehyde is talked of as a first
+step in that direction he is reminded of nothing so much as of Harry
+Lauder, in the character of a schoolboy, "pulling his treasures from his
+pocket--'That's a wassher--for makkin motor-cars!'" Nineteen hundred and
+twelve pinned its faith on matter and nothing else; Nineteen hundred and
+thirteen assured us that "occurrences now regarded as occult can be
+examined and reduced to order by the methods of science carefully and
+persistently applied."[2] Further, the examination of those facts had
+convinced the deliverer of the address "that memory and affection are
+not limited to that association with matter by which alone they can
+manifest themselves here and now, and that personality persists beyond
+bodily death." Nineteen hundred and fourteen proclaimed telepathy a
+"harmless toy," which, with necromancy, has taken the place of
+"eschatology and the inculcation of a ferocious moral code." And yet it
+is on telepathy, if we are to believe the daily papers, that Sir Oliver
+Lodge largely relies for his proofs. Here, at any rate, is a pleasing
+diversity of opinion which fully bears out what was said at the
+beginning of this paper. It is, however, with the third address, or
+rather pair of addresses, that we are concerned; for the meeting of
+1914, not only was the first to be held at the Antipodes, but also the
+first to be honoured with two addresses--one in Melbourne, the other in
+Sydney.
+
+Their deliverer is a very distinguished and a very independent man of
+Science. It was he who insisted, at a time when the domination of a very
+rigid form of Darwinism was much stronger than it is to-day, that the
+picture of Nature as seen by us is a Discontinuous picture, though
+Discontinuity does not exist in the environment. And it was he who asked
+whether the Discontinuity might not be in the living thing itself, and
+prefixed to the monumental work[3] in which he discussed this question
+the significant text from the Bible: "All flesh is not the same flesh;
+but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another
+of fishes, and another of birds." Nearer to our own times, he was one of
+a small body of men of science who almost synchronously disinterred the
+forgotten works of Abbot Mendel, and proclaimed them to the world, as
+containing discoveries of the first value. He was thus always something
+of a "Herald of Revolt," and maintains that character in these
+addresses. "We go to Darwin for his incomparable collection of facts. We
+would fain emulate his scholarship, his width and his power of
+exposition, but to us he speaks no more with philosophical authority. We
+read his scheme of evolution as we would those of Lucretius or Lamarck,
+delighting in their simplicity and their courage" (M., p. 9).
+"Naturally, we turn aside from generalities. It is no time to discuss
+the origin of the Mollusca or of Dicotyledons, while we are not even
+sure how it came to pass that _Primula obconica_ has in twenty-five
+years produced its abundant new forms almost under our eyes" (_ib._,
+_ib._). And so on. To take one other example: there is nothing which was
+more insisted upon by Darwinians than the fact that all the various
+races of domestic fowl known to us came from _Gallus bankiva_, the
+jungle-fowl of India; in fact I think I have seen that form enthroned
+amongst its supposed descendants in more than one museum. "So we are
+taught; but try to reconstruct the steps in their evolution and you
+realise your hopeless ignorance" (M., p. 11). If we cannot construct a
+"tree" for fowls, how absurd to adventure into the deeper recesses of
+Phylogeny. If all that Professor Bateson says is true, is not Driesch
+right when he speaks of "the phantasy christened Phylogeny"?[4]
+
+The addresses, however, were not solely concerned with throwing contempt
+upon views which were yesterday of great respectability, and which even
+to-day are as gospel to many. They devoted themselves chiefly to the
+consideration of the question of heredity, viewed, as might be expected,
+from the Mendelian standpoint.
+
+Now, at this point it may be said that there are at least two things
+which we should like to know about heredity--the vehicle and the laws.
+It is clear that we might know something, perhaps even a good deal,
+about one of these without knowing anything about the other.
+
+Such in fact is the case; for we know, it may fairly be said, nothing
+about the vehicle. There are two very widely distinct opinions on this
+point. There is the mnemic theory, recently brought before us by the
+republication of Butler's most interesting and suggestive work with its
+translations of Hering's original paper and Von Hartmann's discourse and
+its very illuminating introduction by Professor Hartog.[5]
+
+And there is the continuity theory which teaches that in some way or
+another the characteristics of the parents and other ancestors are
+physical parts of the germ. An attempt to explain this was made by
+Darwin in his theory of Pangenesis. Others have essayed what Yves Delage
+calls "micromeristic" interpretations. As to all of these it may be said
+that when they are reduced to figures the explanation becomes of so
+complex a character as utterly to break down. We shall see that
+Professor Bateson adopts a third very nebulous explanation. But as
+regards the laws of heredity there is something else to be said; for
+here we really do know something, and that something we owe in large
+measure to the innumerable experiments which have been made on Mendelian
+lines since the re-discovery of the methods first adopted by the
+celebrated Abbot of Bruenn. It is no intention of the writer of this
+paper to describe the Mendelian theory,[6] which is well known, at least
+to all biological readers, though one or two points in connection with
+it may yet have to be touched upon.
+
+The point of cardinal importance in connection with Mendelism is that it
+does reveal a law capable of being numerically stated, and apparently
+applicable to a large number of isolated factors in living things.
+Indeed it was this attention to isolated factors which was the first and
+essential part of Mendel's method. For example, others had been content
+to look at the pea as a whole. Mendel applied his analytic method to
+such things as the colour of the pea, the smooth or wrinkled character
+of the skin which covered it, its dwarfness or height, and so on.
+
+Now, the behaviour of these isolated factors seems to throw a light even
+upon the vehicle of heredity. We often talk of "blood" and "mixing of
+blood," as if blood had anything to do with the question, when really
+the Biblical expression "the seed of Abraham" is much more to the point.
+For it is in the seed that these factors must be, whether they be mnemic
+or physical. Professor Bateson (M., p. 5) thinks it obvious that they
+are transmitted by the spermatozoon and the ovum; but it seems to him
+"unlikely that they are in any simple or literal sense material
+particles." And he goes on to say, and this, I think, is one of his most
+important statements: "I suspect rather that their properties depend on
+some phenomenon of arrangement."
+
+Now, if there be a law behind the phenomena made clear to us by
+Mendelian experiments (as Mendelians are never tired of asserting), then
+it becomes in no way impertinent to ask how that law came into
+existence, and who formulated it. Darwinism, according to Driesch,[7]
+"explained how by throwing stones one could build houses of a typical
+style." In other words, it "claimed to show how something purposively
+constructed could arise by absolute chance; at any rate this holds of
+Darwinism as codified in the seventies and eighties." Of course the
+Blind Chance doctrine breaks down utterly when it comes to be applied to
+selected cases, and nothing more definitely disposes of it than the very
+definite law which emerges as the result of the Mendelian experiments.
+That is obvious to the prophets of Mendelism; but, whilst they admit
+this, they will have nothing to say to the lawgiver. That is the
+"rankest metaphysics," as Dr. Johnstone puts it,[8] or "mysticism," as
+others prefer to call it. And yet nothing is more clear than the
+logical sequence that, if you have a law, someone must have made it,
+and if you look upon something as "a phenomenon of arrangement," someone
+must have arranged it. But for reasons not obvious nor confessed, there
+is an objection to make any such admission. Perhaps it is the taint of
+the monism of the latter half of the last century which still persists.
+
+At any rate, as I have elsewhere pointed out, there is a most curious
+passage in another paper by the same author in which he says: "With the
+experimental proof that variation consists largely in the unpacking and
+repacking of an original complexity, it is not so certain as we might
+like to think that the order of these events is not pre-determined." The
+writer hastens to denounce the horrid heresy on the brink of which he
+finds himself hesitating, by adding that he sees "no ground whatever for
+holding such a view," though "in the light of modern research it
+scarcely looks so absurdly improbable as before."[9] It is curious that
+the writer in question does not seem to have been in any way influenced
+by the eliminative argument so potent in connection with the discussion
+on Vitalism. We ask for an explanation of the occurrences--say of
+regeneration. We find that no physical explanation in the least meets
+the needs of the case, and we are consequently obliged to look for it in
+something differing from the operations of chemistry and physics. Of
+this argument Dr. Johnstone[10] says: "It is almost impossible to
+overestimate the appeal which it makes to the investigator."
+
+Now, this matter of "arrangement" or of "pre-determination," when put
+forward as an explanation, even tentatively, necessitates a step
+further. That step might possibly be in the direction of pantheism,
+though, according to Driesch,[11] pantheism is the doctrine "that
+reality is a something which makes itself ('_dieu se fait_,' in the
+words of Bergson), whilst theism would be any theory according to which
+the manifoldness of material reality is predetermined in an immaterial
+way." And he concludes "that those who regard the thesis of the theory
+of order as necessary for everything that is or can be, must accept
+theism, and are not allowed to speak of '_dieu qui se fait_.'" It is
+difficult to see how anyone who has studied the rigid order exhibited by
+experiments on Mendelian lines can resist the logic of this argument
+unless indeed he takes a place on Plate's platform, which admits that a
+law entails a lawgiver, but declares that of the Lawgiver of Natural
+Laws we can know nothing.[12]
+
+There is a further point in connection with Mendelian theories which is
+worth noting in this connection. It would appear that no new factor is
+ever brought into being, that is, no _addition_ is ever made by
+variation. According to this theory the things which appear to be
+added--a new colour or a new scent--were there all the time. They were
+"stopped down" or inhibited by some other factor, which, when
+eliminated, allows them to come into play, and thus to become obvious to
+the observer from whom they had been hidden. Thus, Professor Bateson
+(M., p. 17) has confidence "that the artistic gifts of mankind will
+prove to be due, not to something added to the make-up of an ordinary
+man, but to the absence of factors which in the normal person inhibit
+the development of these gifts. They are almost beyond doubt to be
+looked upon as _releases_ of powers normally suppressed. The instrument
+is there, but it is 'stopped down.'"
+
+That all sorts of things may exist in a very small compass no doubt
+is true. Professor Bateson reminds us that Shakespeare was once
+"a speck of protoplasm not so big as a small pin's head." The
+difficulty--insuperable on ordinary monistic lines--is how all these
+things got into the germ if no additions ever take place. It was so
+difficult to account, for example, for artistic appreciation on the part
+of man or for gifts of an artistic character that Huxley was fain to
+describe them as gratuitous; but on this showing all characters are
+gratuitous in the sense that they are not acquired. We may reasonably
+inquire not merely how all these characters and factors got themselves
+"arranged" or "packed," but where they came from, and how they came to
+be in the germ at all, matters on which we receive no information in
+these addresses. No doubt the author of the addresses would say that it
+was no part of his business to explain this matter; that he took this
+system of Nature as a going system and did his best to explain it as
+such and without attempting, perhaps even without desiring, to explain
+how it got a-going. If that be the case, and if ignorance on this head
+must be his confession, it is a little difficult to understand the
+confidence with which he sets himself to discuss the "extraordinary and
+far-reaching changes in public opinion [which] are coming to pass." We
+shall find these, as we pass them in review, to be extraordinary enough,
+though not very new.
+
+In the first place, "genetic research will make it possible for a nation
+to elect by what sort of beings it will be represented not very many
+generations hence, much as a farmer can decide whether his byres shall
+be full of shorthorns or Herefords. It will be very surprising indeed if
+some nation does not make trial of this new power. They may make awful
+mistakes, but I think they will try" (S., p. 8). It is curious how the
+war, which had just commenced when these addresses were being delivered,
+has absolutely disposed, or ought to have disposed, of some of the
+prophecies of the President. Nothing, at any rate, seems more certain
+than that one result of this most disastrous struggle will be an urgent
+demand by all the States engaged in it for at least as many male
+children as the mothers of each country can supply, without special
+regard to their other characters, breedable or not breedable. We are
+even told that Germany is resorting to expedients which cannot be
+justified on Christian principles to fill her depleted homes. Whether
+this be true or not the fact remains that nothing is now more to be
+desired by all the combatant nations than what we call in Ireland "long
+families." But even if there had been no war, there is one other factor
+which makes it quite certain that no country ever will try, or if it
+ventures to try, will ever succeed in any such experiment, and that
+factor, forgotten by philosophers of this kind, is human nature. Mr.
+Frankfort Moore years ago wrote a pleasant story, called "The Marriage
+Lease," in which doctrinaire legislation of a somewhat similar kind was
+described, and its inevitable failure most amusingly depicted. The war
+disposes of another of the President's maxims (S., p. 10), that the
+decline in the birth-rate of a country is nothing to be grieved about,
+and that "the slightest acquaintance with biology" shows that the
+"inference may be wholly wrong," which asserts that "a nation in which
+population is not rapidly increasing must be in a decline" (S., p. 10).
+Human nature was neglected in the first-mentioned case, and here it is
+the turn of history to pass into the shade, history which, _pace_ the
+President, has really a good deal more bearing upon a question of this
+kind than the "school-boy natural history" which he thinks capable of
+settling it. Thus we advance from breeding to Malthusianism. It is
+perhaps not wonderful that our next step should be the quiet, and of
+course painless, extinction of the unfit.
+
+    "Thou shalt not kill, but needs't not strive
+     Officiously to keep alive."
+
+Thus wrote Clough; but our author, it appears, would go further than
+this. "The preservation of an infant so gravely diseased that it can
+never be happy or come to any good is something very like wanton
+cruelty. In private life few men defend such interference" (S. 10). And
+so such unfortunates should be got rid of, and will be "as soon as
+scientific knowledge becomes common property"--when "views more
+reasonable, and, I may add, more humane are likely to prevail." Lest we
+should be depressed by this massacre of the innocents, we are told that
+"man is just beginning to know himself for what he is--a rather
+long-lived animal, with great powers of enjoyment if he does not
+deliberately forgo them" (S., p. 9). In the past, poor fool that he has
+been, he has not availed himself of his opportunities: "Hitherto
+superstition and mythical ideas of sin have predominantly controlled
+these powers." Let us, however, take heart: "Mysticism will not die out;
+for those strange fancies knowledge is no cure; but their forms may
+change, and mysticism as a force for the suppression of joy is happily
+losing its hold on the modern world" (_ib._, _ib._). Let us eat and
+drink--and, it may be added, sin--for to-morrow we die. Such is the new
+gospel of science, an old enough gospel, tried and found wanting years
+before its latest prophet arose to proclaim it to the world. Surely no
+more ridiculous utterance ever was made; for its author evidently did
+not pause to consider that the sins which make life pleasant to some
+(for example, Thuggery) are apt to have quite another aspect to those
+through whose victimisation the pleasure is obtained. There is also here
+such a thing as the conscience, which has to be taken into account. Even
+the biological hedonist must originally possess such a thing and, it may
+be supposed, must deal with it as he would with the gravely diseased
+children, and as something which would "predominantly control his powers
+of enjoyment."
+
+Seriously, it may be doubted if a more pagan code of morals has ever
+been laid down, and this in the Encyclical of Science for the year, a
+code bad enough to make poor Mendel turn in his grave could he--good,
+honest man--be aware of it, and imagine that he was in any way
+responsible for it, which, by the way, is in no way the case.
+
+
+Sec. 2. SCIENCE AS A RULE OF LIFE
+
+Saint or sinner, some rule of life we must have, even if we are wholly
+unconscious of the fact. A spiritual director will help us to map out a
+course of action which will assist us to shake off some little of the
+dust of this dusty world; and a doctor will lay down for us a dietary
+which will help us to elude, for a time at least, the insidious onsets
+of the gout. Even if we take no formal steps, spiritual or corporeal,
+some rule of life we must achieve for ourselves. We must, for example,
+make up our minds whether we are to open our ears and our purse to tales
+of misery, or are to join ourselves with those whose rule of life it is
+to keep that which they have for themselves. What is true of each of us
+is none the less true of each and every race--even more true; for each
+race must make up its mind definitely as to which rule it will follow.
+And at the moment there is still doubt and indecision in this matter.
+
+"The moral problem that confronts Europe to-day is: What sort of
+righteousness are we, individually and collectively, to pursue? Is the
+new righteousness to be realised in a return to the old brutality? Shall
+the last values be as the first? Must ethical process conform to natural
+process as exemplified by the life of any animal that secures dominancy
+at the expense of the weaker members of its kind?"[13] Such are the
+questions raised by a man of science occupying the Presidential Chair of
+an important society and speaking to that society as its President.
+
+As to the Christian ideals little need be said, since we know very well
+what they are, and know this most especially, that practically all of
+them are in direct opposition to what we may call the ideals of Nature,
+and exercise all their influence in frustrating such laws as that of
+Natural Selection. "Nature's Insurgent Son," as Sir Ray Lankester calls
+him,[14] is at constant war with Nature, and when we come to consider
+the matter carefully, in that respect most fully differentiates himself
+from all other living things, none of which make any attempt to control
+the forces of Nature for their own advantage. "Nature's inexorable
+discipline of death to those who do not rise to her standard--survival
+and parentage for those alone who do--has been from the earliest times
+more and more definitely resisted by the will of man. If we may for the
+purpose of analysis, as it were, extract man from the rest of Nature, of
+which he is truly a product and a part, then we may say that man is
+Nature's rebel. Where Nature says 'Die!' man says 'I will live.'"[15]
+
+To this it may be added that, under the influence of Christianity, man
+goes a step further and says: "I will endeavour that as many others as
+may be shall live, and live happy, healthy lives, and shall not untimely
+die." The law of Natural Selection could not be met by more direct
+opposition. I have said that this is under the influence of
+Christianity, yet the impulse seems to be older than that, to be part of
+that moral law which excited Kant's admiration, which he coupled with
+the sight of the starry heavens, an impulse, we can scarcely doubt,
+implanted in the heart of man by God Himself. It is a remarkable fact
+that in many--some would say most--of the less civilised races of
+mankind we find these social virtues, which some would have us believe
+are degenerate features foisted on to the race by an enervating
+superstition.
+
+Dr. Marett has carefully examined into this matter, and his conclusions
+are of the greatest interest.[16]
+
+     "My own theory about the peasant, as I know him, and about
+     people of lowly culture in general so far as I have learnt
+     to know about them, is that the ethics of amity belong to
+     their natural and normal mood, whereas the ethics of enmity,
+     being but 'as the shadow of a passing fear,' are relatively
+     accidental. Thus to the thesis that human charity is a
+     by-product, I retort squarely with the counter-thesis that
+     human hatred is a by-product. The brute that lurks in our
+     common human nature will break bounds sometimes; but I
+     believe that whenever man, be he savage or civilised, is at
+     home to himself, his pleasure and pride is to play the good
+     neighbour. It may be urged by way of objection that I
+     overestimate the amenities, whether economic or ethical, of
+     the primitive state; that a hard life is bound to produce a
+     hard man. I am afraid that the psychological necessity of
+     the alleged correlation is by no means evident to me. Surely
+     the hard-working individual can find plenty of scope for his
+     energies without needing, let us say, to beat his wife. Nor
+     are the hard-working peoples of the earth especially
+     notorious for their inhumanity. Thus the Eskimo, whose life
+     is one long fight against the cold, has the warmest of
+     hearts. Mr. Stefanson says of his newly discovered 'Blonde
+     Eskimo,' a people still living in the stone age: 'They are
+     the equals of the best of our own race in good breeding,
+     kindness, and the substantial virtues.'[17] Or again, heat
+     instead of cold may drive man to the utmost limit of his
+     natural affections. In the deserts of Central Australia,
+     where the native is ever threatened by a scarcity of food,
+     his constant preoccupation is not how to prey on his
+     companions. Rather he unites with them in guilds and
+     brotherhoods, so that they may feast together in the spirit,
+     sustaining themselves with the common hope and mutual
+     suggestion of better luck to come. But there is no need to
+     go so far afield for one's proofs. I appeal to those who
+     have made it their business to be intimate with the folk of
+     our own countryside. Is it not the fact that unselfishness
+     in regard to the sharing of the necessaries of life is
+     characteristic of those who find them most difficult to come
+     by? The poor are by no means the least 'rich towards God.'
+     At any rate, if poverty sometimes hardens, wealth,
+     especially sudden wealth, can harden too, causing arrogance,
+     boastfulness, and the bullying temper. 'A proud look, a
+     lying tongue, and the shedding of innocent blood'--these go
+     together."
+
+On the whole, then, we may perhaps conclude that the natural bias of
+mankind is towards kindness to his neighbour, however much the brute in
+him may sometimes impel him to uncharitable words or actions. And
+certainly this natural bias is intensified and made into a binding law
+by the teachings of Christ. But there is the other point of view set
+forward in the philosophy of Nietzsche--if indeed such writings are
+worthy of the name philosophy. "The world is for the superman. Dominancy
+within the human kind must be secured at all costs. As for the old
+values, they are all wrong. Christian humility is a slavish virtue; so
+is Christian charity. Such values have become 'denaturalised.' They are
+the by-product of certain primitive activities, which were intended by
+Nature to subserve strictly biological ends, but have somehow escaped
+from Nature's control and run riot on their own account."
+
+The prophets of this group of ideals, or some such group of ideals, have
+no hesitation in telling us how they would direct the affairs of
+humanity if they were entrusted with their conduct. It will not be
+without interest to consider their plans and to endeavour to form some
+sort of an idea of what kind of place the world would be if they had
+their way. We can then form our own opinion as to whether a world
+conducted on such lines would be in any way a tolerable place for human
+existence.
+
+First of all we may dwell briefly on Natural Selection as a rule of
+life, since it has been put forward as such by quite a number of
+persons. Never, let it at once be said, by the great and gentle-hearted
+originator of that theory, who during his life had to protest as to the
+ignorant and exaggerated ideas which were expressed about it and who,
+were he now alive, would certainly be shocked at the teachings which are
+supposed to follow from his theory and the dire results which they have
+produced.[18]
+
+In the first place such a doctrine leads directly to the conclusion that
+war, instead of being the curse and disaster which all reasonable
+people, not to say all Christians, feel it to be, is, as Bernhardi puts
+it, "a biological necessity, a regulative element in the life of mankind
+that cannot be dispensed with." It is "the basis of all healthy
+development." "Struggle is not merely the destructive but the
+life-giving principle. The law of the strong holds good everywhere.
+Those forms survive which are able to secure for themselves the most
+favourable conditions. The weaker succumb." Humanity has had at times
+evidences of the results of this teaching which are not, one may fairly
+say, of a kind to commend themselves to any person possessed of a
+moderately kindly, not to say of a Christian, disposition. Fortunately,
+or unfortunately, we have the opportunity of studying the experiment in
+actual operation in a race which, of course in entire ignorance of the
+fact, is actually putting into practice the teachings of Natural
+Selection, though it must be admitted that the practice has not been
+successful, nor does it look like being successful, in raising that race
+above the very lowest rung of the ladder of civilisation. Captain
+Whiffen[19] has given a very complete and a very interesting account of
+the peoples whom he met with during his wanderings in the regions
+indicated by the title of his book. And he tells us that "the survival
+of the most fit is the very real and the very stern rule of life in the
+Amazonian forests. From birth to death it rules the Indians' life and
+philosophy. To help to preserve the unfit would often be to prejudice
+the chances of the fit. There are no arm-chair sentimentalists to oppose
+this very practical consideration. The Indian judges it by his standard
+of common sense: why live a life that has ceased to be worth living when
+there is no bugbear of a hell to make one cling to the most miserable of
+existences rather than risk greater misery?" Let us now see the kind of
+life which the author, freed himself no doubt from "the bugbear of
+hell," considers eminently sensible--the kind of life of which only an
+"arm-chair sentimentalist" would disapprove; a kind of life, it may be
+added, which will appear to most ordinarily minded people as being one
+of selfishness raised to its highest power.
+
+To begin with the earliest event in life. If a child, on its appearance
+in the world, appears to be in any way defective, its mother quietly
+kills it and deposits its body in the forest. If the mother dies in
+childbirth the child, unless someone takes pity on it and adopts it, is
+killed by the father, who, it may be presumed, is indisposed to take the
+trouble, perhaps indeed incapable of doing so, of rearing the motherless
+babe. That the child, in any case, immediately after birth, is plunged
+into cold water, is not perhaps a conscious method of eliminating the
+weak, though it must operate in that direction. At a later period of
+life should any disease believed to be infectious break out in a tribe,
+"those attacked by it are immediately left, even by their closest
+relatives, the house is abandoned, and possibly even burnt. Such
+derelict houses are no uncommon sight in the forest, grimly desolate
+mementoes of possible tragedies." When a person becomes insane, he is
+first of all exorcised by the medicine man, and if that fails is put to
+death by poison by the same functionary. The sick are dealt with on
+similar lines, unless there is or seems to be a probability of speedy
+recovery. "Cases of chronic illness meet with no sympathy from the
+Indians. A man who cannot hunt or fight is regarded as useless, he is
+merely a burden on the community." Under these circumstances he is
+either left at home untended or hunted out into the bush to die, or his
+end is accelerated by the medicine man. The same fate awaits the aged,
+unless they seem to be of value to the tribe on account of their wisdom
+and experience.
+
+All these things placed together give us a perfect picture of life under
+Natural Selection, and having studied it we may fairly ask whether such
+a rule of life is one under which any one of us would like to live. In
+every respect it is the antipodes of the Christian rule of life, and of
+that rule of life which civilised countries, whether in fact Christian
+or not, have derived from Christianity and still practise. The
+non-Christian rule of the Indians is one under which might is right and
+no real individual liberty exists, all personal rights being sacrificed
+to the supposed needs and benefit of the community.
+
+So much from the point of view of Natural Selection, but it would appear
+that those who have given up that factor as of anything but a very minor
+value, if even that, have also their rule of life founded on their
+interpretation of Nature. Thus Professor Bateson, the great exponent of
+Mendel's doctrines, who has told us in his Presidential Address to the
+British Association that we must think much less highly of Natural
+Selection than some would have us do, has, as has been set forth in the
+previous section of this essay, his opinion as to the rule of life which
+we should follow.
+
+Professor Conklyn, an American enthusiast for extreme eugenistic views,
+has also set down in print his ideas as to the lines on which our lives
+are to be run under a scientific domination, and these are to be dealt
+with in another article.[20] His scheme entails a forcible visit, not,
+it may be supposed, to the Altar, but to the Registry Office, for all
+persons held to be fit to perpetuate the race, and forcible restraint,
+whether by imprisonment or by sterilisation, for all others.
+
+The first thing which all these essays towards a scientific conduct of
+life reveal is a total want of perspective, for they proceed on the
+hypothesis--which no doubt their authors would defend--that this world
+and its concerns are everything, and that the intellectual and physical
+improvement of the human race by any measures, however harsh, is the
+"one thing needful." But beyond this the persons who hold such views
+seem to have entirely overlooked the fact that their proposed State
+would be one conducted on principles of the bitterest and most galling
+slavery imaginable by the mind of man, a form of slavery that never
+could persist if for a moment it be conceded that it could ever come
+into operation. The fact is that the whole thing is ludicrous when
+looked at from the point of view of common sense, but how few take the
+trouble to contemplate these schemes as they would be in operation! Were
+they thus to contemplate them, they would see that, apart altogether
+from any religious considerations, they are wholly impossible, even from
+a purely political point of view. That such ideas are intolerable to
+Catholic minds, indeed to any Christian mind, goes without saying.
+
+Driesch (_Science and Philosophy of the Organism_, vol. ii., p. 358) has
+pointed out very clearly that "the mechanical theory of life is
+incompatible with morality," and that it is impossible to feel "morally"
+towards other individuals if one knows that they are machines and
+nothing more. Again, Professor Henslow (in _Present Day Rationalism
+Critically Examined_, p. 253) very pertinently asks those who discard
+all religious considerations and claim to rely for guidance on the
+lessons of Nature, "If you have no taste for virtue, why be virtuous at
+all, so long as you do not violate the laws of the land?"
+
+Yet, in the face of these surely obvious facts, we find persons making
+such absurd claims as that made in a recent book by Rignano, an Italian
+writer (_Essays in Scientific Synthesis_, 1917). It is not often that
+one meets a book so full of philosophical fallacies as this. "We are
+certain of one fact," he says, "that the only organ actually brought
+into play to fight immorality is the organ of the collective conscience
+and not the religious organ." I suppose no more ludicrously inaccurate
+remark ever was set down in print; for, to begin with, the "collective
+conscience," whatever that may be, does not exist in Nature, _teste_ the
+farmyard and the fowl-run; and again, whatever force is connoted by
+those words must have been set agoing--by what? By Nature? Oh, most
+emphatically No! Nature has no law against immorality; there is no
+Categorical Imperative in Nature commanding us to be chaste or kindly or
+considerate or even just. We must go elsewhere if we are to look for
+teaching in the virtues. That is the fact that we must keep clearly
+before our minds when endeavouring to estimate at their proper value the
+nostrums of writers such as those with whose works we have been dealing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 1: Two addresses were delivered in 1914--one in
+  Melbourne, the other in Sydney. These will be referred to in
+  this article as M. & S.]
+
+  [Footnote 2: Sir Oliver Lodge: _Continuity_, p. 90.]
+
+  [Footnote 3: _Materials for the Study of Variation_, London,
+  1894.]
+
+  [Footnote 4: _The History and Theory of Vitalism_, p. 140.]
+
+  [Footnote 5: _Unconscious Memory._ Fifield. 1910.]
+
+  [Footnote 6: Those who desire further information may be
+  referred to _A Century of Scientific Thought_, by the present
+  writer. Burns & Oates.]
+
+  [Footnote 7: _Op. cit._, pp. 137-8.]
+
+  [Footnote 8: _The Philosophy of Biology_, p. 64.]
+
+  [Footnote 9: In an article in the volume _Darwin and Modern
+  Science_, p. 100.]
+
+  [Footnote 10: _Op. cit._, p. 319.]
+
+  [Footnote 11: _Op. cit._, pp. 238-9.]
+
+  [Footnote 12: See the discussion on this subject in Wasmann's
+  _The Problem of Evolution_.]
+
+  [Footnote 13: R. R. Marett, Presidential Address to Folk-Lore
+  Society, 1915. _Folk-Lore_, vol. xxvii., pp. 1-14.]
+
+  [Footnote 14: _The Kingdom of Man._ London: Constable & Co.
+  1907.]
+
+  [Footnote 15: Lankester, _op. cit._, p. 26.]
+
+  [Footnote 16: _Op. cit._, pp. 21-27.]
+
+  [Footnote 17: _My Life with the Eskimo_ (1913), p. 188.]
+
+  [Footnote 18: For a discussion of this question, see _Bernhardi
+  and Creation_, by Sir James Crichton-Browne, F.R.S. Glasgow:
+  James Maclehose & Sons. 1916.]
+
+  [Footnote 19: _The Northwest Amazons._ London: Constable & Co.
+  1915.]
+
+  [Footnote 20: _Science and the War_, p. 120.]
+
+
+
+
+II. THEOPHOBIA AND NEMESIS
+
+
+Sec. 1. THEOPHOBIA: ITS CAUSE
+
+_Initium sapientiae timor Domini_; no doubt, but such fear is only the
+beginning, and is not the kind of fear--which also exists--a fear which
+engenders an actual revulsion against the idea of God.
+
+It is to this kind of fear which the eminent Jesuit writer Wasmann
+alludes when he says that "in many scientific circles there is an
+absolute _Theophobia_, a dread of the Creator. I can only regret this,"
+he continues, "because I believe that it is due chiefly to a defective
+knowledge of Christian philosophy and theology."
+
+That he is entirely right as to the existence of this feeling there can
+be no doubt; no one can read at all widely in scientific literature
+without becoming aware of it. Contrary to all the tenets of science
+there is even a bias against any such idea as that of a Creator, though
+science is supposed to confront all problems without bias of any kind. I
+need not cite instances of this feeling; I have dealt with it elsewhere.
+We may take it for granted, and proceed to look for an explanation for
+the phenomenon. Wasmann attributes it to ignorance, and he is, I feel
+sure, right; but let us examine the matter a little more closely. Why
+should persons--even if ignorant--have the bias which some obviously
+present against the idea of a God? Why should they wish to think that
+there is no such Being, no future existence, nothing higher than Nature?
+Some persons maintain that precedent to a denial of God there must be a
+moral failure. That I am sure is quite wrong. I should be far from
+saying that in some materialists there is not a considerable weakening
+of moral fibre, or perhaps it would be better put, a distortion of moral
+vision, as evidenced by many of the statements and proposals of
+eugenists, for example, and by the political nostrums of some who wrest
+science to a purpose for which it was not intended. This no doubt is
+true, but it is not quite the argument with which I am now dealing, and
+that argument, if it implies moral failure in the persons concerned, has
+little if any genuine foundation in fact. Mr. Devas, in that very
+remarkable book, _The Key to the World's Progress_, gives us the useful
+phrase "post-Christians." These people are really pagans living in the
+Christian era, retaining many of the excellent qualities which they owe
+neither to Nature nor to paganism, but to the inheritance--perhaps
+involuntary and unrecognised--of the influences of Christianity. Many of
+these people are kind, benevolent, scrupulously moral. They have not
+learned to be such from Nature, for Nature teaches no such lessons. Nor
+have they learnt them from paganism, for these are not pagan virtues.
+They are an inheritance from Christianity. Those, therefore, who build
+arguments as to the needlessness of religion on the foundation that
+persons without any belief in God do exhibit all the moral virtues,
+build on sand. At any rate the answer to the question which we are
+discussing is not to be found in this direction.
+
+Others again will perhaps maintain the thesis that fashion has a great
+deal to do with this. It is not fashionable to believe in God, or at
+least it was not. It was highly fashionable to call oneself an agnostic;
+perhaps it is not quite so much the vogue now as it was. No doubt there
+is something in this, though not very much. It is much easier to go with
+the tide than against it, and there are scientific tides as truly as
+there are tides in the fashion of dress. There was a Weismann tide, now
+nearly at dead water; there was an anti-vitalistic tide, now ebbing
+fast. When these were in full flow it was a hazardous thing for a young
+man who had to make his own way in the scientific world to swim against
+either or both of them. Fashions change, and fashion is not so set
+against the idea of a God as it was. The materialistic tide is "going
+out," and we shall see that there is some truth in the view which holds
+that the incoming tide is largely that of occultism, a thing disliked
+and despised--and indeed with some reason--by the materialistic school
+even more than it dislikes and despises theistic opinions.
+
+Fashion, however, is not in any way a complete answer to the question we
+are proposing to ourselves, nor is the unquestionable fact that
+scientific men have a strong objection to putting their trust in
+anything which cannot be subjected either to scientific examination or
+to experiment. In this attitude there is more than a germ of truth.
+"Occam's razor" is as valuable an implement to-day as it ever was, and
+everyone will admit that we must exhaust all known causes before we
+proceed to postulate a new one.
+
+We have gone beyond the day of the absurd statement that thought (which
+is of course unextended) is as much a secretion of the brain as bile
+(which, equally of course, is extended) is of the liver. No one nowadays
+would commit himself to such a statement, and men in general would be
+chary of urging that we should not believe anything which we cannot
+understand. I have myself heard a distinguished man of science of his
+day--he is dead this quarter of a century--make that statement in
+public, wholly ignoring the fact that any branch of science which we may
+pursue will supply us with a hundred problems we can neither understand
+nor explain, yet the factors of which we are bound to admit. But there
+is undoubtedly a dislike to accepting anything which cannot be proved by
+scientific means, and a tendency to describe as "mysticism"--a terrible
+and damning term to apply to anything, so its employers think!--any
+explanation which postulates something more in the universe than
+operations of a physical and chemical character.
+
+My own opinion is that the state of things which we are considering
+finds its explanation in history, and I propose to devote a short space
+to developing this view. Of course we might, and in some ways should,
+go back to the Reformation and to the destruction of religion which then
+took place. Let us, however, pass from that period to a time some
+hundred and fifty years ago and commence our investigations there, and
+in carrying them out I propose to make considerable use of the novels of
+different periods.
+
+It is a truism that very little but the dry bones of history can be
+learnt from histories.
+
+Nowadays people are sick of reading about more or less immoral monarchs,
+and more or less corrupt politicians, and it may be suspected that most
+of us have had our bellyful of wars now that the recent contest has come
+to an end. What one really wants to learn from history is how the
+ordinary folk, like ourselves, were getting on; what their ideas were;
+how the world wagged for them. Such information we are much more likely
+to get from memoirs and, since such works have been published, from
+novels. The novelist is not to be supposed to be committed to acceptance
+of all the remarks put into the mouths of his characters, but, if he is
+of the second, not to say the first flight (and, if he is not, he is not
+worth quoting), his characters and the general tone of his book will not
+be out of touch with the times to which they belong. Since the novel
+came into existence as something more than an occasional rarity, it is
+the novelists and not the players who are "the abstract and brief
+chronicles of the times," and it is to them that we shall apply for some
+of the information we desire.
+
+To commence with the Georgian period, it is not too much to say that
+anything like real religion was scarcely ever at a lower ebb in England.
+This is not to say that there was an absolute dearth of religion. Law
+wrote his _Serious Call_ during that period, and there are few books of
+its kind which have had a greater and more lasting effect. There were
+others of like but lesser character than Law, but, on the whole, no one
+will deny that the clergy of the Established Church (Catholics were, of
+course, in the catacombs) and the religion which they represented were
+almost beneath contempt. Look, for example, at _Esmond_, the typical
+novel of its period. Is there a single clergyman in it who is not an
+object of contempt, with the sole exception of the Jesuit, who, though a
+good deal of the stage variety, at least gains a measure of the reader's
+sympathy and respect? Thackeray was not himself a Georgian, it may be
+urged. That of course is true, but no one that knows Thackeray and knows
+also Georgian literature will deny that he was saturated with it and
+understood the period with which his book dealt better perhaps than
+those who lived in it themselves. But examine the novelists of the
+period; what about Fielding? Parson Adams is respectable and lovable,
+but the general average of parson and religion is certainly about as low
+as it can be. Fielding was not a religious man. Possibly, but what then
+of Richardson? We do not find religion at a very high level there; can
+anything well be more degraded than the figure cut by Mr. Williams in
+_Pamela_, for example--the miserable curate upon whom the heroine calls
+for help in her distress? But apart from that, look at the whole
+atmosphere of the book. Why, the moral is that if you resist the immoral
+onslaughts of your master long enough he will give in and marry you, and
+you will be applauded for your successful strategy by all the
+countryside. Such is the book which all agreed to praise as an example
+of all that a book ought to be from the point of view of virtue.
+
+It will be admitted by all conversant with the facts that religion could
+hardly have been at a lower ebb than it was when what is known as the
+Evangelical Movement came to trouble the placid, if stagnant and turbid,
+pool of the Established Church. Of course it did not transform the
+Church entirely. Read Miss Austen's novels: the most perfect pictures of
+life ever written. There are, I suppose, some half-dozen clergymen,
+pleasant and unpleasant, depicted in them, and we may be sure that they
+fairly well represent the typical average country parson of the period.
+Whatever they may otherwise be, they all agree in one point, namely in
+the complete absence of any such thing as a trace of spirituality. But
+in the early nineteenth-century Evangelicanism--specially that terrible
+variety Calvinism--was the dominant factor where religion really
+prevailed as a living influence; and it is to its influence, I firmly
+believe, that we may attribute the genuine detestation of religion which
+was so marked a feature of a part of the Victorian and most of the
+succeeding time. I am not, of course, forgetting the Oxford Movement,
+but, important as that was and is, in its earlier years it was almost
+entirely confined to clerical circles, exercising comparatively little
+influence on the laity and practically none at all on that great middle
+class which had been so much affected by the Wesleys, Whitefield, Scott,
+Newton, and the other pundits of Evangelicanism. Take the characteristic
+novel of the movement, if novel it should be called, Newman's _Loss and
+Gain_: I do not remember a single male character in it who is not in
+Holy Orders or on the way thereto. Hence, so far as religious influences
+are concerned, it is to the Evangelical Movement that we have to look.
+Now, though in my opinion it was the parent of many evils, there is no
+doubt that there was in it real fervour; intense devotion; a genuine
+desire to know and do God's will; a burning love for our Lord; coupled
+with all which were the most distorted and distorting ideas of what was
+and what was not sin ever conceived by any brain. Of this creed I can
+speak from personal knowledge, for I was brought up in it and know it
+from bitter experience.
+
+The exponents of these views were never tired of instilling into their
+pupils the need for conversion, which was supposed to be a sudden
+operation. I have heard persons name the exact moment by the clock and
+the day on which theirs took place, and it was often effected by a
+single text. I have seen the Bible of an eminent leader in this line
+which contains a number of texts painted round with colours, each of
+which was associated with the conversion of some particular individual.
+The process was supposed to be effected by the "acceptance of Christ,"
+and though it was said to be free to all, it was clear to some at least
+of those who quite earnestly and really desired it, that, however ardent
+their desires, they could not secure their realisation. One was supposed
+to know in some mysterious manner that one was converted; the operation
+was permanent in its character; it could not be repeated; once
+thoroughly effected the converted person neither wished to sin nor
+really did sin. If anyone supposed to have been converted did relapse
+into evil ways, then he never had really been converted, but only seemed
+to have been. I have heard this circular form of argument urged most
+strongly by those who were (by constitution apparently) absolutely
+unable to see the illogical position which they were taking up. A
+further, and the most awful, part of the teaching was that however much
+one desired to be converted, and however earnestly one prayed for it, if
+one died without it damnation was certain. Lastly there was the
+encouraging thought that everything done prior to conversion was equally
+without merit; in fact, one might almost say, equally evil. These things
+were dinned into the heads of the young, in season and out of season; is
+it any wonder that so many of them grew up to hate religion? I remember
+myself the positive terror with which I went out even to minor
+entertainments, because I knew that in all probability close
+interrogation would be made as to my spiritual condition.
+
+Let me be reminiscent and recall one case. I was a boy at school and
+spending my Easter vacation away from home and with friends. It was my
+lot to have to dine one night with an old friend of my father's, a
+person of some distinction, who having, I believe, been a _viveur_ in
+his youth, had in later years embraced the most ferocious type of
+Evangelicanism. When the ladies had retired I was left alone with this
+formidable person, whom I eyed much as a rabbit eyes a snake into whose
+cage he has been introduced. Nor were my fears groundless, for no sooner
+was the room empty than he peremptorily demanded of me whether I was
+saved. On hearing my trembling but perfectly truthful reply that I
+really did not know, he struck the table with his fist (I can see the
+whole thing quite plainly to-day, though it is five-and-forty years
+ago), exclaiming, "Then you are a fool, and if you were to die to-night
+you most certainly would be damned." I ask those who were brought up in
+a more kindly and more rational scheme of Christianity whether it is any
+wonder that those whose youth was spent in these gloomy shades should
+welcome the thought that there was no such being as a God?
+
+Associated with this gloomy creed a new series of sins was invented, as
+if there were not enough already in the world. It was sinful to dance,
+even under the most domestic and proper circumstances. It was a sin to
+play cards, even when there was no money on the game. It was a sin to
+go to the theatre, even to behold the most inspiring and instructive
+plays. It was even held by some, as we shall see, that the writing of
+stories or works of imagination was sinful. I once heard a professor of
+this creed express the doubt whether Shakespeare had not, on the whole,
+done much more harm than good, and state that he himself would not allow
+the works of Dickens to occupy a place in a hospital library, from
+which, as a matter of fact--for on this point the discussion had
+arisen--they had been excluded by the then chaplain of the institution,
+a man of like views. In fact, the idea of God which was presented to the
+youth of that period and brought up under such influences was--I do not
+say wilfully--that of a kind of super-policeman: a hard-hearted
+policeman, with an exaggerated code of misdoings, forever waiting round
+a corner to pounce on evil-doers, and, one was obliged to think,
+apparently almost pleased at the opportunity of catching them. It need
+not be said that no disrespect is intended in this. It is a simple and
+truthful statement of the kind of impression made upon one person by the
+teachings of that age and school. Is it any wonder that persons brought
+up in such a creed should experience a feeling of relief on learning
+that there was no God, no sin, no punishment? Add to this the terrors of
+the exaggerated Sabbatarianism of the period. What was the Sunday
+programme? Two lengthy sessions of Family Prayers; two attendances--each
+lasting at least an hour and a quarter--on services in church; one,
+sometimes two, hours of Sunday School; no books but those of a religious
+character; no amusements of any kind even for the very young, unless the
+putting together of a dissected map of Palestine could be called an
+amusement; what a method of rendering Sunday attractive to the young!
+
+Is it any wonder that those brought up on such a plan abandoned, with a
+sigh of relief, all religious exercises when at last they were able to
+do so? I notice that Mr. Belfort Bax, in his _Reminiscences of a Mid and
+Late Victorian_, alludes to this matter, saying that, "The most cruel of
+all the results of mid-Victorian religion was, perhaps, the rigid
+enforcement of the most drastic Sabbatarianism. The horror of the tedium
+of Sunday infected more or less the whole of the latter portion of the
+week." _Experto crede!_ He says further, dealing with the 'fifties, that
+"the intellectual possibilities of the English people were then stunted
+and cramped by the influence of the dogmatic Calvinistic theology which
+was the basis of its traditional sentiment;"--it is exactly the point
+which I am trying to make.
+
+We may now examine two instances of the kind of teaching with which I am
+dealing and its results. The first is that of the poet Cowper, and
+anyone who takes the trouble to read his life as written by Southey will
+find the whole piteous tale fully drawn out. Southey hated the Catholic
+Church, of which, by the way, he knew absolutely nothing, but he had
+sufficient sense to reject the teachings of Calvinism. Cowper was at
+times insane and at other times of anything but a well-balanced mind,
+and he was just the kind of man who never ought to have been brought
+under the influences to which he was subjected. His principal adviser
+was the Rev. John Newton, a well-known Calvinistic clergyman of the
+Church of England. He must have been a man of compelling character, for
+he it was who brought the Rev. Thomas Scott, Rector of Aston Sandford,
+out of Socinianism, which, though a minister of the Church of England,
+he professed, into the Calvinistic view of things, as Scott himself
+tells us in his book _The Force of Truth_; and it must not be forgotten
+that it was to the writings of this same Scott that Newman tells us (in
+his _Apologia_) that he owed his very soul. Newton, like many of his
+fellows, had no sort of doubt as to his right to act as a director of
+souls, nor of his profound knowledge of how they should be dealt with.
+Yet it is to be remembered that, whilst the Catholic priest is obliged
+to undergo a long and careful training before he is permitted to take up
+this perilous task, Newton and those of his kind undertook it without
+any training whatever. Cowper, as everybody knows, was carefully and
+kindly tended by Mrs. Unwin, a woman a good deal older than himself,
+against whose character no word of reproach was ever uttered, the widow
+of an old friend of the poet. Newton wanted to drive Mrs. Unwin out of
+his house, but here at least Cowper rebelled and showed his very just
+annoyance, Newton actually urged Cowper to abandon the task of
+translating Homer, a labour undertaken to distract his poor sick mind
+from thinking of itself, because such work, not being of a religious
+character, partook of the nature of sin. It is no wonder that such a
+rule of life had not infrequently the most distressing consequences.
+Newton himself admits that his preaching had the reputation of driving
+people into lunacy. In a letter asking that steps may be taken to remove
+one poor victim to an asylum he says: "I hope the poor girl is not
+without some concern for her soul; and, indeed, I believe a concern of
+this kind was the beginning of her disorder. I believe," he continues,
+"my name is up about the county for preaching people mad ... whatever
+may be the immediate cause, I suppose we have near a dozen, in different
+degrees, disordered in their heads, and most of them I believe truly
+gracious people."
+
+Let us turn to the other example which I propose to select, that given
+by Mr. Gosse in his truly remarkable work _Father and Son_, one of the
+most faithful pictures of life ever written. The first instance shall be
+an extract from the diary of the mother, obviously a woman of great
+power and gifts if she had been given an opportunity of displaying them.
+"When I was a very little child," she writes, "I used to amuse myself
+and my brothers with inventing stories such as I had read. Having, as I
+suppose, naturally a restless mind and busy imagination, this soon
+became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately my brothers were
+always fond of encouraging this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my
+maid, a still greater tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it,
+until Miss Shore" (a Calvinistic governess), "finding it out, lectured
+me severely, and told me it was wicked. From that time forth I
+considered that to invent a story of any kind was a sin. But the desire
+to do so was too deeply rooted in my affections to be resisted in my own
+strength," (she was at this time nine years of age), "and unfortunately
+I knew neither my corruption nor my weakness, nor did I know where to
+gain strength. The longing to invent stories grew with a violence;
+everything I heard or read became food for my distemper. The simplicity
+of truth was not sufficient for me; I must needs embroider imagination
+upon it, and the folly, vanity and wickedness which disgraced my heart,
+are more than I am able to express. Even now (at the age of
+twenty-nine), though watched, prayed and striven against, this is still
+the sin which most easily besets me. It has hindered my prayers and
+prevented my improvement, and therefore has humbled me very much." It is
+narrated of the well-known Father Healy that a young lady having
+consulted him as to the sin of vanity, she feeling convinced, when she
+looked in her glass, that she was a very pretty girl, was answered by
+him, "My child, that is not a sin; it is a mistake!" It wanted some wise
+adviser to make the same remark to this poor tortured and deluded woman.
+
+Illness under this code was always a punishment sent from heaven, as,
+indeed, it may be; but, "if anyone was ill it showed that 'the Lord's
+hand was extended in chastisement,' and much prayer was poured forth in
+order that it might be explained to the sufferer, or to his relations,
+in what he or they had sinned. People would, for instance, go on living
+over a cesspool, working themselves up into an agony to discover how
+they had incurred the displeasure of the Lord, but never moving away."
+One last instance, the most remarkable of all, and we may leave this
+book. It need hardly be said that a father of the kind depicted in this
+book would have a holy horror of the Catholic Church, and he had. He
+"welcomed any social disorder in any part of Italy, as likely to be
+annoying to the Papacy." He "celebrated the announcement in the
+newspapers of a considerable emigration from the Papal dominions, by
+rejoicing at this outcrowding of many, throughout the harlot's domain,
+from her sin and her plagues," and he even carried his hatred so far as
+to denounce the keeping of Christmas, which to him was nothing less than
+an act of idolatry.
+
+On a certain Christmas Day, the servants, greatly daring, disobeyed the
+order of their master and actually had the audacity to make a small
+plum-pudding for themselves. Actuated by pity, no doubt, and by a
+feeling of kindness towards a small boy deprived of all the joys of the
+season, they pressed a slice of this pudding upon the son, who
+succumbed--very naturally--to the temptation. Shortly after, however,
+being afflicted by a stomach-ache, remorse came upon him and he rushed
+to his father, exclaiming: "Oh! papa, papa, I have eaten of flesh
+offered to idols!" When the father learned what had happened, he sternly
+said, "Where is the accursed thing?" Having heard that it was on the
+kitchen table, "he took me by the hand, and ran with me into the midst
+of the startled servants, seized what remained of the pudding, and with
+the plate in one hand and me still tight in the other, ran till we
+reached the dust-heap, where he flung the idolatrous confectionery on to
+the middle of the ashes, and then raked it deep down into the mass. The
+suddenness, the velocity of this extraordinary act, made an impression
+on my memory which nothing will ever efface." Such is a plain
+unvarnished account of the kind of way in which numbers of people were
+brought up in the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. Can it be
+wondered that those who had such a childhood should grow up with an
+absolute horror of the Person in Whose name such things--absurdities
+when not positive crimes--were perpetrated? I firmly believe that these
+wholly false ideas of God and of sin have had more to do with the spread
+of materialism than many will perhaps be disposed to admit. Educated
+people, especially those trained in scientific methods, demand a certain
+common sense and sobriety in their beliefs. If they are brought up to
+believe that a grievous sin is committed when they invent an innocent
+story; when they go to a theatre or to a dance, or play a game of cards;
+if they have never known the demands of real Christianity as put
+forward by the Catholic Church, is it likely that they will cleave to a
+faith which apparently engenders such absurdities as the Christmas
+pudding episode? It is, indeed, as Father Wasmann says, a thousand
+pities that the reasonableness, the logic, the dignity of the Catholic
+religion should remain for ever hidden from the eyes and minds of many
+who so often are as they are, because they were brought up as they were.
+In all these things we find the key to another problem. In another essay
+in this volume I have called attention to the glad intelligence, as it
+seems to a certain school of writers, that we are freed from the
+"bugbear of sin," as one of them puts it; able to enjoy ourselves
+without any thoughts of that kind.
+
+Now I cannot but believe that such writers are thinking of the bugbear
+of artificial sins invented by the professors of a gloomy creed of
+religion. It is not to be supposed that any serious writer--and those to
+whom I allude are eminently such--would speak or write with pleasure and
+satisfaction of escaping from the bugbear of sins against morality or
+against one's neighbour; from the bugbear of dishonesty or theft; of
+taking away a person's character; of running away with his wife. I am
+convinced that it is the invented crimes of card-playing, theatre-going,
+and the like to which they are alluding: it could not surely be
+otherwise; and that makes it all the more unfortunate that before
+misusing a technical term like the word "sin," and thus perhaps
+misleading some young and ardent mind, such writers could not follow
+Father Wasmann's advice and study some simple manual of Catholic ethics,
+from which they would learn the real doctrine of Christianity and would
+discover how very different a thing it is and how very much more
+reasonable than the distorted caricature which we have been studying.
+
+
+Sec. 2. THEOPHOBIA: ITS NEMESIS
+
+Whether my view as to the cause, or one of the causes, is right or not,
+the fact remains that by the mid-Victorian period England had fallen to
+a very large extent a prey to materialism. Many people attribute the
+sudden onslaught of this to the publication of _The Origin of Species_
+and the controversies of the foolish which followed thereon. Samuel
+Butler, that brilliant writer who has not even yet come into his own,
+sums up in his novel _The Way of All Flesh_ (and it may incidentally be
+remarked, in himself) most of the characteristics of the day. Many a
+parsonage home like that of the Rev. Theobald Pontifex existed in those
+days, and more than one Ernest Pontifex emerged from them. Now in this
+book Butler states that "the year 1858 was the last of a term during
+which the peace of the Church of England was singularly unbroken," and
+there no doubt he is right; "The Evangelical Movement ... had become
+almost a matter of ancient history. Tractarianism had subsided into a
+tenth-day's wonder; it was at work, but it was not noisy." Then he says
+the calm was broken by the publication of three books: _Essays and
+Reviews_, _The Origin of Species_, _Criticisms on the Pentateuch_ by
+Colenso. Few persons probably now remember the first and the last of
+these books; the fame of the second is likely to last long.
+
+Whether again Butler is right in his idea as to the causes or not, as to
+the fact there can be no doubt. We have arrived at a period when the
+prevalent opinion amongst the intellectual classes was that
+religion--belief in anything which could not be fully understood--was
+impossible once one began to think seriously about it. Those who did not
+really look into such questions might go on considering themselves to
+believe in revelation, but the moment that a man seriously tackled the
+subject, his religion was bound to go, just as that of Ernest Pontifex
+did at the end of five minutes' conversation with an atheistic
+shoemaker.[21] Agnosticism and materialism were in the air, and remained
+the dominant features for quite a number of years. There were those who
+deplored the loss of their faith such as it had been. Huxley obviously
+did; and Romanes, who afterwards returned to the Church of England,
+confessedly did. Such persons, and there were many of them, honestly
+were unable to believe, and said so. A great deal of this was due to the
+attitude of popular science at that time. It was in a hot fit, and was
+going to explain everything, if not to-day, at least to-morrow. Now, as
+Sir Oliver Lodge told us before the war, in his book _Continuity_, we
+are in a cold fit and we seem only to know that nothing can be known.
+Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known as the creator of _Sherlock Holmes_,
+tells us in a recent book from which I shall have further to quote (_The
+New Revelation_, Hodder and Stoughton, 1918): "When I had finished my
+medical education in 1882, I found myself, like many young medical men,
+a convinced materialist as regards our personal destiny." With the facts
+contained in this statement I fully agree. The date in question is
+almost exactly that at which I also became a qualified medical man, and
+I, and I fancy most of my generation, believed ourselves to be agnostics
+if not atheists. It was the atmosphere of the time, and so strong as
+with difficulty to be resisted by those who resorted to the
+Universities. The point which I want to make is that during the latter
+part of the Victorian period we had come to a generation of
+intellectuals practically devoid of religion and followed in that
+respect by that always larger portion of any generation which, not
+having brains to think for itself, yet desiring to follow the
+intellectual _motif_ of the day, adopts whatever is the fashionable
+attitude for the moment towards unseen things. Yesterday it was blank
+negation; to-day it tends, as we shall see, to be spiritualism;
+to-morrow it might be earnest faith: let us hope so. And as to
+Calvinism, all this was _post hoc_ of course; _propter hoc_ also as I
+think.
+
+What followed? That is what we now have to consider. The first thing
+which happened was the very natural discovery that science cannot
+explain everything; has in fact a strictly limited range of country to
+deal with. This discovery began to sap the foundations of materialism.
+Then there came the further discovery that all was not well, as so many
+supposed that it would be, under a scheme of life divorced from all
+connection with religion. Mr. Lucas, who has given the world many
+pleasant books, none of them with any obvious bias in favour of
+religion, in _Over Bemertons_ (one of the most pleasant) makes one of
+his characters, _Mr. Dabney_, deplore the loss of the seriousness of the
+Victorian era: "We believe only in pleasure and success; our one ideal
+is getting wealth." Parenthetically, is not that just what might be
+expected? If there is really nothing but this world, what better can we
+seek than as much pleasure as we can get out of it? _Over Bemertons_ was
+first published in 1908, and the remedy which _Mr. Dabney_ then
+suggested, with a really curious prophetical insight, has just been
+vigorously applied. That remedy was "War, nothing more or less. A bloody
+war--not a punitive expedition or 'a sort of a war'" (he quoted these
+words with white fury) "'that might get us right again.' 'At great
+cost,' I said. 'A surgical operation,' he replied, 'if the only means
+of saving life, cannot be called expensive.'"
+
+Finally the discovery was made that mankind will not for long be content
+to do altogether without religion; a need for something more than bread
+alone being ingrained in his nature. Thus even the professedly
+materialistic societies try to afford something in the way of religious
+exercises. I have recently seen a notice of one of the so-called Ethical
+Societies in which the members (at their meetings, I take it) are
+"requested to silently meditate for five minutes on the good life."[22]
+It would seem to be quite as beneficial and more practical to meditate
+on split infinitives. A substitute for religion has to be found; what is
+it to be? In the years before the war Mr. Masefield published a very
+interesting book called _Multitude and Solitude_, which narrates the
+trials and troubles of two young Englishmen who make a perilous journey
+to Africa in search of the secret of the sleeping-sickness. In all their
+trials they never seem to have thought of prayer, in which it may be
+assumed they did not believe, but when they returned to England it
+occurred to one of them that there was something wanting in their life,
+and he propounded to his friend the view that "the world is just coming
+to see that science is not a substitute for religion," which is one of
+the things urged in this paper. He then proceeded to the rather
+startling conclusion that science _is_ "religion of a very deep and
+austere kind." One is reminded of a well-known passage in the Bible:
+"_Inveni et aram in qua scriptum erat_ IGNOTO DEO." To set up science as
+an "unknown God" seems a curious choice, even more curious than the
+choice of humanity, which--pitiable object as it is--was at least made
+in the image of God. Not to pile up instance upon instance, let us
+content ourselves with remembering that Mr. Wells, who in his earlier
+novels had certainly not displayed any marked affection for religion, in
+the last published before the war (_Marriage_) brings his hero face to
+face with the great realities, and makes him exclaim to his wife that he
+may "die a Christian yet," and urge upon her the need for prayer, if
+only out into the darkness. Of course, as all the reading world knows,
+since the war commenced, Mr. Wells has set up his own altar "IGNOTO
+DEO," not with much more satisfactory results than those attained by Mr.
+Masefield. It is an historical fact that times of war have also been
+times of religious awakening, and it is natural that they should be so,
+for even the most careless must be brought to contemplate something more
+than the day's enjoyment. It is not then wonderful that the terrible war
+which has raged with Europe as the cockpit, and practically all the
+nations of the world as participants, should turn the minds of those who
+are in the righting line towards thoughts which in times of peace may
+never have found entrance there. From all sides one hears that this is
+so, yet here again it is too often the case that an "unknown God" is
+sought, and from want of proper direction not always found. In a
+recently published memoir of one of the many splendid young fellows by
+whose death the world has been made poorer during this calamitous war,
+there is this moving passage: "I know that many hearts are turning
+towards _something_, but cannot find satisfaction in what the Christian
+sects offer. And many, failing to find what they need, fall back sadly
+into vague uncertainties and disbelief, as I often do myself." We badly
+need a St. Paul who will say to these and other anxious hearts, "_Quod
+ergo ignorantes colitis, hoc ego annuntio vobis_."
+
+However, it is much more with those who only "stand and wait" than with
+those who were actually in the trenches that we are concerned; what
+about the lamentable army of wives and mothers, widows and orphans,
+people bereft of those they loved or rising every morning in dread of
+the news which the day might bring forth; what about these and their
+attitude towards the things unseen? That many such have turned to some
+genuine form of religion is happily beyond dispute, but it is also
+unquestionably true that thousands have turned aside to the attractions
+of spiritualism. A recent article in the Literary Supplement of the
+_Times_ commenced with the statement that "Among the strange, dismaying
+things cast up by the tide of war are those traces of primitive
+fatalism, primitive magic, and equivocal divination which are within
+general knowledge." The writer of the article in question thinks that
+as we have taken a huge and lamentable step backwards in civilisation,
+we need not be surprised that we should also have receded in the
+direction of those primitive instincts to which he calls attention. This
+process had, however, begun long before the war.
+
+The late Dr. Ryder, Provost of the Birmingham Oratory, was a very shrewd
+observer of public affairs and a very close and dear friend of the
+present writer. It must be more than twenty years ago since he remarked
+to me that he thought that materialism had shot its bolt and that the
+coming danger to religion was spiritualism, a subject on which, if I
+remember right, he had written more than one paper. I asked him what led
+him to that conclusion, and his reply was to ask me whether I had not
+noticed the great increase in number of the items in second-hand book
+catalogues--a form of literature to which we were both much
+addicted--under the heading "OCCULT." Since the war, however, there can
+be no doubt about the fact that spiritualism has made great strides. A
+thousand pieces of evidence prove it. Look, for example, at the enormous
+vogue of _Raymond_, a book of which I say nothing, out of personal
+regard for its author and genuine respect for his honesty and
+fearlessness. But I return to Sir Arthur Doyle's book, and we find him
+assuring us that he is personally "in touch with thirteen mothers who
+are in correspondence with their dead sons," and adds that in only one
+of these cases was the individual concerned with psychic matters before
+the war. Further, he explains that it was the war which induced him to
+take an active interest in a subject which had been before no more than
+one of passing curiosity. "In the presence of an agonised world," he
+writes, "hearing every day of the deaths of the flower of our race in
+the first promise of their unfulfilled youth, seeing around one the
+wives and mothers who had no clear conception whither their loved one
+had gone to, I seemed suddenly to see that this subject with which I had
+so long dallied was not merely a study of a force outside the rules of
+science, but that it really was something tremendous, a breaking down of
+the walls between the two worlds, a direct undeniable message from
+beyond, a call of hope and of guidance to the human race at the time of
+its deepest affliction." Perhaps it is not wonderful that spiritualism
+should have won the success which it has, for it offers a good deal to
+those who can believe in it. It offers definite intercourse with the
+departed; positive knowledge as to the existence of a future state, and
+even as to its nature--the last-named intelligence not always very
+attractive. Further, it requires no particular creed and, it would
+appear, no special code of morals; for one of its teachings, I gather,
+is that it does not greatly matter what a man thinks or even does, so
+far as his future welfare is concerned.
+
+Sir A. Doyle's book is the least convincing exposition of spiritualism I
+have yet read--and I have studied many of them--but it may be taken to
+include the latest views on the subject. Amongst the revelations which
+he gives, there is one purporting to come from a spirit who "had been a
+Catholic and was still a Catholic, but had not fared better than the
+Protestants; there were Buddhists and Mahommedans in her sphere, but all
+fared alike." Another spirit informed Sir A. Doyle that he had been a
+freethinker, but "had not suffered in the next life for that reason."
+This is not the occasion, and in no way am I the man, to tackle the
+subject of spiritualism, but this at least I think may be said, that the
+person who argues that the whole thing is a fraud and deception does not
+know what he is talking about. Look at the history of the world--_Quod
+semper_, _quod ubique_, almost _quod ab omnibus_. The records of early
+missionaries--Jesuits especially--teem with accounts of the same kind of
+phenomena as we read of in connection with seances to-day, occurring in
+all sorts of places and amongst widely separated races of mankind. We
+have it in the _Odyssey_; we have it in Cicero and in Pliny; we have it
+in the Bible. All this is not a mere matter of imposition.
+
+In a very curious book recently published (_Some Revelations as to
+"Raymond_," by a Plain Citizen; London, Kegan Paul), to which some
+attention may now be devoted, the writer, himself a firm believer in
+spiritualism and one obviously in a position to write about it, points
+out that the old term "magic" has been relegated to the performances of
+conjurers, and the terminology so altered as to make spiritualism appear
+to be a new gospel, whereas the contrary is the case. "The impression
+prevailed that civilised people were in presence of a new order of
+phenomena, and were acquiring a new outlook into the regions of the
+Unknown; whereas the truth was that they were merely repeating, under
+new social conditions and in a new environment, the same experiences
+that had happened to their ancestors during some thousands of years."
+Here I may interject the remark that as far as my reading and knowledge
+go, no spirit has ever had a good word to say for the Catholic religion.
+What that Church thinks about spiritualism has been made quite clear,
+and that is enough for Catholics. Before leaving the Plain Citizen, we
+must not omit to notice one strange hypothesis of his, all the stranger
+as coming from a professed spiritualist. He maintains--perhaps it would
+be fairer to say that he lays down as a working hypothesis--the
+following thesis: Spiritualism involves the existence of mediums, and
+mediums for the most part have to make their living by their operations.
+They will not be averse to making their incomes as large as possible.
+For the purpose of acquiring information as to the affairs of possible
+clients, they have, so he asserts, an almost Freemasonic Association by
+which all sorts of pieces of intelligence concerning persons of
+importance are collected and disseminated amongst the brotherhood. It
+did not require much imagination to suppose that the war would add to
+the number of their clients, whether their claims had real foundation or
+not; what they wanted above all things was some one of undoubted
+position who would "boom the movement," in the slang of the day. They
+laid all their plans to get their man in the author of _Raymond_, and
+they got him. Such is his thesis for what it is worth.
+
+However, it is time to conclude. What I wanted to show was that
+Theophobia was the Nemesis of a dreadful type of Protestantism, and that
+spiritualism was the Nemesis of the materialism associated with that
+Theophobia. There is no need to point out to Catholic readers where the
+remedy lies, and where the real Communion of the saints is to be found.
+They are not likely to be drawn aside by the "Lo here!" of the "false
+Christs" whom we were promised and whom we are getting. It is for those
+who have themselves experienced the consolations of the Catholic
+religion to do their best, each in his own way, to make known to others
+outside our body what things may be found within.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 21: An excellent example may be found in Butler's own
+  career. Destined for the ministry of the Church of England
+  (with his own full consent), he was set to teach a class in a
+  Sunday school. Finding that some of his pupils were unbaptized,
+  yet no worse-behaved than the others, and obviously quite
+  ignorant of what baptism meant, he abandoned all belief. His
+  biographer, equally ignorant, in narrating, with approval, this
+  change of opinion, says, "Paley had produced evidence of
+  Christianity, but none so unmistakable as this to the
+  contrary."]
+
+  [Footnote 22: Dr. Johnson once remarked that "to find a
+  substitution for violated morality was the leading feature in
+  all perversions of religion."]
+
+
+
+
+III. WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE SYSTEM
+
+
+Exclusive and long-continued devotion to any special line of study is
+liable to lead to forgetfulness of other, even kindred, lines--almost,
+in extreme cases, to a kind of atrophy of other parts of the mind. There
+is the example of Darwin and his self-confessed loss of the aesthetic
+tastes he once possessed. Nor are scientific studies the only ones to
+produce such an effect. The amusing satire in _The New Republic_ has,
+perhaps, lost some of its tang now that the prototype of its Professor
+of History is almost forgotten, but it has not lost its point. Lady
+Ambrose tells the tale: "He said to me in a very solemn voice, 'What a
+terrible defeat that was which we had at Bouvines!' I answered
+timidly--not thinking we were at war with anyone--that I had seen
+nothing about it in the papers. 'H'm!' he said, giving a sort of grunt
+that made me feel dreadfully ignorant, 'why, I had an excursus on it
+myself in the _Archaeological Gazette_ only last week.' And, do you know,
+it turned out that the Battle of Bouvines was fought in the Thirteenth
+Century, and had, as far as I could make out, something to do with Magna
+Charta."
+
+It is, however, among writers on biological subjects that we find the
+most salient instances of this contraction. With extraordinary
+self-abnegation they seem, in the contemplation of the problem with
+which they are concerned, to forget that they themselves are living
+things, and, more than that, the living things of whom they ought to
+know and could know most, however little that most may be. When the
+biologist begins to philosophise as, after the manner of his kind, he
+often does, he should leave his microscope and look around him; whereas
+he often forgets even to change the high for the low power. Thus he
+limits his field of vision and forgets, when attempting his explanation,
+that it is only _within a system_ that he is working. Professor Ward, in
+_Naturalism and Agnosticism_, says:
+
+     "From the strict premisses of Positivism we can never prove
+     the existence of other minds or find a place for such
+     conceptions as cause and substance; for into these premisses
+     the existence of our own mind and its self-activity have not
+     entered. And accordingly we have seen Naturalism led on in
+     perfect consistency to resolve man into an automaton that
+     goes of itself as part of a still vaster automaton, Nature
+     as mechanically conceived, which goes of itself. True, this
+     mechanism goes of itself because it _is_ going, and being
+     altogether inert, cannot stop or change. How it ever started
+     is indeed a question which science cannot answer, but which,
+     on the other hand, it has no occasion to ask: time, its one
+     independent variable, extends indefinitely without hint of
+     either beginning or end. Such a system of knowledge, _once
+     we are inside it_, so to say, is entirely self-contained and
+     complete."
+
+"_Once we are inside it!_" what so many writers forget or ignore is that
+they _are_ inside it, and that their explanations do not explain the
+system or how it came to be there or to be in operation. Everybody is
+familiar with Paley's example of the watch found on the heath. Let us
+carry it a little further. Suppose some student, after devoting years of
+patient examination to the watch, were to come forward and say: "I have
+discovered the secret of this watch. There is a spring in it which
+possesses resiliency, and it is that which drives the wheels. I think I
+have heard people say that there must have been a watchmaker to design
+and construct this piece of machinery, but, in face of my discoveries,
+any such explanation is wholly unnecessary and may be altogether
+abandoned."
+
+Perhaps this analogy may be regarded as exaggerated; but, before thus
+condemning it, let the following passage be studied. It is from a very
+important book recently published, which claims (and has had its claim
+supported by many periodicals) to have done away with any need for an
+explanation of life beyond that which can be given by chemistry and
+physics, Jacques Loeb's _Organism as a Whole, from a Physico-Chemical
+Viewpoint_.
+
+It would be hard to find a worse example of confused thinking than that
+of the following passage:
+
+     "The idea that the organism as a whole cannot be explained
+     from a physico-chemical viewpoint rests most strongly on the
+     existence of animal instincts and will. Many of the
+     instinctive actions are 'purposeful,' _i.e._ assisting to
+     preserve the individual and the race. This again suggests
+     'design' and a designing 'force,' which we do not find in
+     the realm of physics. We must remember, however, that there
+     was a time when the same 'purposefulness' was believed to
+     exist in the cosmos where everything seemed to turn
+     literally and metaphorically around the earth, the abode of
+     man. In the latter case, the anthropo- or geo-centric view
+     came to an end when it was shown that the motions of the
+     planets were regulated by Newton's law, _and that there was
+     no room left for the activities of a guiding power_.
+     Likewise, in the realm of instincts, when it can be shown
+     that these instincts may be reduced to elementary
+     physico-chemical laws, the assumption of design becomes
+     superfluous." (_Italics mine._)
+
+In the first place the "purposefulness" of the movements of the planets
+is not affected in the very least by the question of heliocentricism.
+What the author is probably thinking of is an exaggerated and obsolete
+teleology, but that is not what seems to be the purport of the passage.
+Let that pass. The main confusion lies in the application of the term
+"Law." The Ten Commandments, and our familiar friend D.O.R.A., are laws
+we must obey or take the consequences of our disobedience. The "laws"
+which the writer is dealing with are not anything of this kind. Newton's
+Law is not a thing made by Newton, but an orderly system of events which
+was in existence long before Newton's time, but was first demonstrated
+by him. It tells us how a certain part of the system works--when we are
+"_inside it_." It does not in the least explain the system any more than
+the discovery of the resiliency of the spring of the watch explains the
+watch itself. So far from dispensing with "the activities of a guiding
+power," Newton's law is positively clamant for a final explanation,
+since it does not tell us, nor does it pretend to tell us, how the "law"
+came into existence, still less how the planets came to be there, or how
+they happen to be in a state of motion at all. Writers of this kind
+never seem to have grasped the significance of such simple matters as
+the different kinds of causes, or to be aware that a formal cause is not
+an efficient cause, and that neither of them is a final cause. Coming to
+the latter part of the paragraph, it is in no way proved that instincts
+can be reduced to physico-chemical laws, and, suppose it were proved,
+the assumption of design would be exactly where it is at this moment. It
+is the old story of St. Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna and their discussion
+on abiogenesis, and surely biologists might be expected to have heard of
+that. The same confusion of thought is to be met with elsewhere in this
+book, and in other similar books, and a few instances may now be
+examined.
+
+Samuel Butler, in _Life and Habit_, warns his readers against the dicta
+of scientific men, and more particularly against his own dicta, though
+he made no claim to be a scientist. If his reader _must_ believe in
+something, "let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting of
+Giovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's first
+Epistle to the Corinthians." And he exclaims: "Let us have no more 'Lo,
+here!' with the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows;
+no sooner has he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great
+flourish of trumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than
+himself." That is a somewhat unkind way of putting it; but undoubtedly
+theory after theory is put forward, and often claimed to be final, only
+to disappear when another explanation takes its place. Thus at the
+moment we are in the full flood of the chemical theory which is employed
+to explain inheritance. That heredity exists we all know, but so far we
+know nothing about its mechanism. Darwin, with "Pangenesis," and others,
+using other titles, argued in favour of a "particulate" explanation, but
+the number of particles which would be necessary to account for the
+phenomena involved, this and other difficulties, have practically put
+this explanation out of court. Then we had the Mnemic theory of Hering,
+Butler, and others, by which the unconscious memory of the embryo--even
+the germ--is the explanation. Quite lately the mnemic theory has been
+claimed by Rignano in his _Scientific Synthesis_ as a complete
+explanation, in forgetfulness of the fact that even the all-powerful
+protozoon can only remember what has passed and could certainly not
+_remember_ that it was some day going to breed a man. At the moment,
+things are explained on a chemical basis, though that basis is far from
+firm; is of a shifting nature, and a little hazy in details. Some time
+ago, colloids were the cry. A President of the British Association
+almost led one to imagine that "the homunculus in the retort" might be
+expected in a few weeks. But the chemists would have none of this, and
+denied that the colloids, about which they ought to know more than do
+the biologists, had that promise in them which had been claimed. We had
+Leduc and his "fairy flowers," as now we have Loeb and others with their
+metabolites and hormones. As to these last, there seems to be no kind of
+doubt that the internal secretions of many organs and structures have
+effects which were, even a few years ago, quite unsuspected. Those of
+the thyroid and adrenals are excellent examples.
+
+It seems to be the fate, however, of all supporters of new theories to
+run into extravagances. Darwin had to remind his enthusiastic disciples
+that Natural Selection could not create variations, and we may feel some
+confidence that Hering, were he alive, would urge his followers to bear
+in mind that memory cannot create a state of affairs which never
+existed. So far we may certainly say that these internal secretions do
+produce certain physical effects, some of them effects not to be
+suspected by the uninformed reader. There seems to be very good evidence
+that the growth of antlers in deer depends upon an internal secretion
+from the sex-gland and from the interstitial tissue of that gland; for
+it is apparently upon the secretions of this portion of the gland that
+the secondary sexual characters depend, and not merely these, but also
+the normal sexual instincts. And this takes us a stage further. The
+extreme claim is that all instincts, in fact all thoughts and
+operations, are in the last analysis chemical or chemico-physical. Let
+us examine this claim for a moment. The adrenals are two inconspicuous
+ductless bodies situated immediately above the kidneys. Not many years
+ago, when the present writer was a medical student, all that was known
+about these organs was that when stricken with a certain disease, known
+as Addison's disease from the name of its first describer, the
+unfortunate possessor of the diseased glands became of a more or less
+rich chocolate colour. To-day we know that the internal secretion of
+these organs is a very powerful styptic, and there is good reason to
+believe that a copious discharge accompanies an unusual exhibition of
+rage. When we are told things of this kind we must first of all remember
+that the adrenalin does not cause the rage, though it may produce its
+concomitant phenomena. If a man flies into a violent passion because
+someone has trodden upon his corns, and there is a copious flow of
+adrenalin from the glands, it is not that flow which has caused his
+rage. It may be the flow from the interstitial tissue of the sex-glands
+which engenders sexual feelings, but then those are almost wholly
+physical, and only in a very minor sense--if even if any true
+sense--psychical. Persons who take the extreme view have never yet
+suggested that there is a characteristic hormone connected with those
+psychical attributes alluded to in the chapter of the Corinthians
+recommended to our notice by Butler. In fact they seem to ignore all but
+the lower or vegetable characters when dealing with psychology from the
+chemico-physical point of view.
+
+Finally, we come again to the fatal and fundamental defect of this as of
+other "explanations"; it is an explanation "_within the system_," and
+therefore unphilosophical in so far as it fails to explain the facts
+through their ultimate or deepest reasons.
+
+A large part of Loeb's book is devoted to a description of the author's
+remarkable experiments in artificial parthenogenesis, and an attempt to
+show that they offer a complete explanation. Sir William Tilden, one of
+the greatest living authorities on organic chemistry, tells us that "too
+much has been made of the curious observations of J. Loeb and others";
+and he definitely states that when we consider "the propagation of the
+animal races by the sexual process ... there can be no fear of
+contradiction in the statement that in the whole range of physical and
+chemical phenomena there is no ground for even a suggestion of an
+explanation." Behind this pronouncement of an expert, one might well
+shelter oneself; but the question under consideration merits a little
+further treatment. The reproduction of kind, though usually a bi-sexual
+process, may, however, normally in rare cases be uni-sexual, and this
+process is known as Parthenogenesis. Even in human beings certain
+tumours of the sex-glands, known as teratomata, very rare in women and
+even rarer, if ever existent, in men, have been claimed as examples of
+attempts at parthenogenesis, and so far no better explanation is
+available.
+
+Now Loeb and others have succeeded in certain forms--even in a
+vertebrate like the frog--in inducing development in unimpregnated ova.
+The evidence for all these things is still slender; but we will content
+ourselves with noting that point and passing on to the consideration of
+the phenomena and the claims put forward in connection with them. We
+find the task of unravelling the writer's meaning rendered more
+difficult by a certain confusion in his use of terms, since
+fertilisation, _i.e._ syngamy--the union of the different sex
+products--seems to be confused with segmentation, _i.e._ germination;
+and this confusion is accentuated by the claim that "the main effect of
+the spermatozoon in inducing the development of the egg consists in an
+alteration in the surface of the latter which is apparently of the
+nature of a cytolysis of the cortical layer. Anything that causes this
+alteration without endangering the rest of the egg may induce its
+development." When the spermatozoon enters the ovum it causes some
+alteration in the surface membrane of the latter which, amongst other
+things, prevents the entrance of further spermatozoa. Loeb thinks that
+in causing this alteration it sets up the segmentation of the ovum. That
+there is a close connection between the two events seems undoubted; that
+they are in relation of cause and effect seems likely. It is quite
+evident that an artificial stimulus can in certain cases set up
+segmentation, but never can it cause the fertilisation of the ovum. It
+may very likely produce the same change in the membrane that is caused
+by the entrance of the spermatozoon under normal circumstances--membrane
+formation may be necessarily coincident with the liberation in the egg
+of some zymose which arises from a pre-existent zymogen. But we are
+still some way off any assurance that the _main_ object of the
+spermatozoon in inducing the development of the egg is this surface
+alteration. It may be the initial effect; very probably it is; but since
+the main function of the spermatozoon must be the introduction of
+germplasm from the male parent, it is too much for anyone to ask us to
+believe that its _main_ function is concerned with surface alteration.
+
+Loeb argues that the change in the surface membrane is of a chemical
+character, and that no doubt may be correct; but even if we allow him
+every scientific fact, or surmise, he is still, as in the other cases
+with which we have dealt, miles away from any real explanation. He is
+still inside his chemico-physical explanation to begin with; and, even
+within that, he still leaves us anxious for the explanation of a number
+of points--for example, as to the nature of the chemical process which
+accompanies, or is the cause of, segmentation. We in no way press these
+questions; for similar demands could be made in so many cases; we only
+indicate that they are there. What we do press is this--that when an
+authority comes forward to assure us that all the processes of life,
+including man's highest as well as his lowest attributes, can be
+explained on chemico-physical lines, we are entitled to ask for a more
+cogent proof of it than the demonstration, however complete, of the
+germination of an egg, caused by artificial stimulus and not by the
+ordinary method of syngamy, even though that germination may lead to the
+production of a perfect adult form. We are entitled to ask him to make
+clear to us not only what is happening _within his system_, but--which
+is far more important--what that system is, and how it came into
+existence. We are entitled to ask why the artificial stimulus, or the
+entry of the spermatozoon, produces the effects which it is claimed to
+produce instead of any one of some score of other effects which it might
+conceivably have produced. Above all we are entitled to ask why there
+are any effects, or even why there is any ovum or any spermatozoon or
+curious physiological investigator, to give the artificial stimulus.
+Until some light is thrown upon these things we are still within the
+system, or merely hovering round its confines, and are far away from any
+final or philosophical explanation such as would satisfy the mind of
+the man who wants to get a real and not a partial knowledge of the
+things around him.
+
+We may now turn to the question of Vitalism. It was long the regnant
+theory; then temporarily the Cinderella of biology; it is now returning
+to its early position, though still denied by those of the older school
+of thought who cannot imagine the kitchen wench of yesterday the ruler
+of to-day. One of the objections to Vitalism is that this explanation of
+living things is thought by ignorant writers to be so inextricably mixed
+up with theological considerations as to furnish a case of _stantis aut
+cadentis ecclesiae_. That is, of course, absurd; but it creates an
+undoubted bias against the theory. Hence it is the fashion amongst its
+opponents to write of it as "mystical" or, as Loeb does, as
+"supernatural," probably the most illogical term that could possibly be
+used. What is Vitalism? It is the theory that there is some other
+element--call it entelechy with Driesch, or call it what you like--in
+living things than those elements known to chemistry and physics. If it
+is _not_ there, _cadit quaestio_; if it _is_ there it is not
+"supernatural." It might with reason be called "super-mechanical," or
+"super-chemical," or "super-physical"; but if it is in Nature, as it is
+held to be, it is not "supernatural" in any true sense of that word--no
+dictionary confines the term "Nature" to the operations of chemistry and
+physics.
+
+A good deal of the misconception existing on this point comes from pure
+ignorance of philosophy, a subject with which writers of this school
+seldom have even a nodding acquaintance. "The idea of a quasi-superhuman
+intelligence presiding over the forces of the living is met with in the
+field of regeneration." Echoes of the Cartesian idea of the soul seem to
+ring in this statement; but it could not have been written by anyone who
+had mastered the Aristotelian or the Scholastic explanation of matter
+and form. But let us take this question of Regeneration; the power which
+all living things have, in some measure, though in very different
+measure, of reconstructing themselves when injured. It has been dealt
+with in a masterly manner by Driesch; and we may at once say that we do
+not think that Loeb has in any way contraverted his argument, nor even
+entered the first line of defence of that which is built up around what
+he calls by the somewhat forbidding name of "Harmonious-Equipotential
+System."
+
+Let us take one particular example, a very remarkable one, which has
+been cited by both writers--Wolff's experiment on the lens of the eye.
+The lens is just behind the pupil or central aperture in the iris or
+coloured ring at the front of the eye, and behind the cornea which is to
+the eye what a watch-glass is to a watch. If the lens of the eye be
+removed from a newt, as it is from human beings in the operation for
+cataract, the animal will grow another one. How does it do it? In
+certain cases a tiny fragment of the lens has been left behind after the
+operation, and the new one grows from that. This is sufficiently
+wonderful, but by no means so wonderful as what happens in other cases
+in which the entire lens has been removed and the new lens grows from
+the outer pigmented layer of the margin of the iris. To the unbiological
+reader one source of origin will not seem more wonderful than the other,
+but there is really a vast distinction between them. At an early stage
+in the development of the embryo, the cells composing it become
+divisible into three layers. It is even possible, as Loeb maintains,
+that this differentiation is present in the unsegmented ovum, in which
+case the facts to be detailed become still more remarkable and
+significant. These layers are known as epi-, meso-, and hypo-blast; and
+from each one of them arise certain portions of the body, and certain
+portions only. It would be as remarkable to a biologist to find these
+layers not breeding true as it would to a fowl-fancier to discover that
+the eggs of his Buff Orpingtons were producing young turkeys or ducks.
+Now the lens is an epiblastic structure, and the iris is mesoblastic.
+Hence the wonder with which we are filled when we find the iris growing
+a lens. Loeb attempts to explain this in the first instance by telling
+us that the cells of the iris cannot grow and develop as long as they
+are pigmented; that the operation wounds the iris, allows pigment to
+escape, and thus permits of proliferation. We may accept this, and yet
+ask why it takes on a form of growth familiar to us only in connection
+with epiblast? The reply is: "Young cells when put into the optic cup
+always become transparent, no matter what their origin; it looks as if
+this were due to a chemical influence, exercised by the optic cup or by
+the liquid it contains.
+
+"Lewis has shown that when the optic cup is transplanted into any other
+place under the epithelium of a larva of a frog the epithelium will
+always grow into the cup where the latter comes in contact with the
+epithelium; and that the ingrowing part will always become transparent."
+A most remarkable and interesting experiment; it has this very important
+limitation--that it is always _epithelium_ with which it has to do,
+whereas in Wolff's experiment the regeneration takes place from
+mesoblastic tissue. The cause of the transparency may be a chemical
+reaction--it depends a good deal upon our definition of that phrase. Is
+protoplasm a chemical compound? Some have considered it so, and spoken
+of its marvellously complicated molecule. Of course it is made up of
+carbon, hydrogen, and other substances within the domain of chemistry.
+But is it, therefore, merely a chemical compound? The reply involves the
+whole riddle of Vitalism. The author would say that it, as well as all
+the living things to which it belongs, is purely and solely a chemical
+compound; and he must take the consequences of his belief. One of these
+consequences, from which doubtless he would not shrink, would be that a
+super-chemist (so to speak) could write him and his experiments and his
+book down in a series of chemical formulae--a consequence which takes a
+good deal of believing. But it also involves him in a belief in the
+rigidity of chemical reactions; and we are entitled to ask for an
+explanation of the identical behaviour of the chemical reaction in
+connection with epiblastic and mesoblastic cells--both pure chemical
+compounds _ex hypothesi_ and, as far as we can tell from their normal
+behaviour, widely differing from one another. The optic cup, or its
+contained fluid, is one chemical compound; epithelium is another;
+mesoblast is a third. We want an explanation of the identical behaviour
+of the first with _either_ of the two latter; and this should be borne
+in mind--that the reaction is not a mere matter of "clearing" of a
+tissue as the histologist would clear his section by oil-of-cloves or
+other reagent, but of the construction of a different type of
+cell--epithelial, not connective tissue.
+
+It certainly follows that there must be some superior, at least widely
+different, agency at work than one of a purely chemical
+character--something which transcends chemical operations. This is
+precisely what the Vitalist claims. No one will fail to award praise to
+any attempts to explain the phenomena of Nature, whether within or
+without any system. Loeb's book sets out to do a great deal more--to
+explain what it does not explain--the Organism as a Whole, and thus to
+give a philosophical explanation of man. It even claims to afford hints
+for a rule for his life, at least so we gather from the Preface, where,
+alluding to "that group of freethinkers, including d'Alembert, Diderot,
+Holbach and Voltaire," the author tells us that they "first dared to
+follow the consequences of a mechanistic science--incomplete as it then
+was--to the rules of human conduct, and thereby laid the foundation of
+that spirit of tolerance, justice, and gentleness which was the hope of
+our civilisation until it was buried under the wave of homicidal emotion
+which has swept through the world." On which it is surely reasonable to
+ask how a chemical reaction can learn so to alter itself as to exhibit
+"tolerance, justice, and gentleness," attributes which it had not
+previously possessed? Such claims of this and other writers, who would
+find in the laws of Nature as formulated to-day (forgetful that their
+formulae may to-morrow be cast into the furnace) a rule of life as well
+as a full explanation of the cosmos, resemble in their lack of base an
+inverted pyramid.
+
+
+
+
+IV. SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE"
+
+
+Amongst the numerous taunts which are cast at the Catholic Church there
+is none more frequently employed, nor, it may be added, more generally
+believed, nor more injurious to her reputation amongst outsiders--even
+with her own less-instructed children themselves at times--than the
+allegation which declares that where the Church has full sway, science
+cannot flourish, can scarcely in fact exist, and that the Church will
+only permit men of science to study and to teach as and while she
+permits.
+
+To give but one example of this attitude towards the Church, readers may
+be reminded that Huxley[23] called the Catholic Church "the vigorous
+enemy of the highest life of mankind," and rejoiced that evolution, "in
+addition to its truth, has the great merit of being in a position of
+irreconcilable antagonism to it." An utterly incorrect, even ignorant
+statement, by the way--but let that pass. The same writer, in a number
+of places, in season and out of season, as we may fairly say,[24]
+proclaims his wholly erroneous view that there is "a necessary
+antagonism between science and Roman Catholic doctrine." We need not
+labour this point. It is sufficiently obvious, nor does it need any
+catena of authorities to establish the fact, that outside the Church,
+and even, as we have hinted above, amongst the less-instructed of her
+own children, there is a prevalent idea that the allegation with which
+this paper proposes to deal is a true bill.
+
+Those who give credit to the allegation must of course ignore certain
+very patent facts which are, it will be allowed, a little difficult to
+get over. They must commence by ignoring the historical fact that the
+greater number--almost all indeed--of the older Universities, places
+specially intended to foster and increase knowledge and research, owe
+their origin to Papal bulls. They must ignore the fact that vast numbers
+of scientific researches, often of fundamental importance, especially
+perhaps in the subjects of anatomy and physiology, emanated from learned
+men attached to seats of learning in Rome, and this during the Middle
+Ages, and that the learned men who were their authors quite frequently
+held official positions in the Papal Court. They must finally ignore the
+fact that a large number of the most distinguished scientific workers
+and discoverers in the past were also devout children of the Catholic
+Church. Stensen, "the Father of Geology" and a great anatomical
+discoverer as well, was a bishop; Mendel, whose name is so often heard
+nowadays in biological controversies, was an abbot. And what about
+Galvani, Volta, Pasteur, Schwann (the originator of the Cell Theory),
+van Beneden, Johannes Mueller, admitted by Huxley to be "the greatest
+anatomist and physiologist among my contemporaries"?[25] What about
+Kircher, Spallanzani, Secchi, de Lapparent, to take the names of persons
+of different historical periods, and connected with different subjects,
+yet all united in the bond of the Faith? To point to these men--and a
+host of other names might be cited--is to overthrow at once and finally
+the edifice of falsehood reared by enemies of the Church, who, before
+erecting it, might reasonably have been asked to look to the security of
+their foundations.
+
+Still there is the edifice, and as every edifice must rest on some kind
+of foundation or another, even if that foundation be nothing but sand,
+it may be useful and interesting to inquire, as I now propose to do,
+what foundation there is--if in fact there is any--for this particular
+allegation.
+
+We might commence by interrogating the persons who make it. The
+probability is that the reply which would at once be drawn from most of
+them would amount to this: "Everybody knows it to be true." If the
+interrogated person is amongst those less imperfectly informed we shall
+probably be referred to Huxley or to some other writer. Or we may even
+find ourselves confronted with that greater knowledge--or less
+inspissated ignorance--which babbles about Galileo, the Inquisition, the
+_Index_, and the _imprimatur_.
+
+Galileo and his case we shall consider later on, for he and it are
+really germane to the question with which we are dealing. The
+Inquisition has really nothing to do with the matter. The _Index_ we
+also reserve for a later part of this essay. With the _imprimatur_ we
+may now deal, since there is no doubt that there is a genuine
+misunderstanding on this subject on the part of some people who are
+misled perhaps through ignorance of Latin and quite certainly through
+ignorance of what the whole matter amounts to. Let us begin by reminding
+ourselves that, though the unchanging Church is now, so far as I am
+aware, the only body which issues an _imprimatur_, there were other
+instances of the exercise of such a privilege even in recent or
+comparatively recent days. There were Royal licences to print with which
+we need not concern ourselves. But, what is important, there was a time
+when the scientific authority of the day assumed the right of issuing an
+_imprimatur_. I take the first book which occurs to me, Tyson's
+_Anatomie of a Pygmie_, and for the sake of those who are not acquainted
+with it, I may add that this book is not only the foundation-stone of
+Comparative Anatomy, but also, through its appendix _A Philological
+Essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges
+of the Ancients_, the foundation-stone of all folk-lore study. On the
+page fronting the title of this work the following appears:
+
+                                       _17 Die Maij, 1699._
+
+       _Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang sive Homo
+     Sylvestris, etc. Authore Edvardo Tyson, M.D., R.S.S._
+
+                                    _John Hoskins, V.P.R.S._
+
+What does this mean? In the first place it shows, what all instructed
+persons know, that the Royal Society did then exercise the privilege of
+giving an _imprimatur_ at any rate to books written by its own Fellows.
+It cannot be supposed that such _imprimatur_ guaranteed the accuracy of
+all the statements made by Tyson, for we may feel sure that John Hoskins
+was quite unable to give any such assurance. We must assume that it
+meant that there was nothing in the book which would reflect discredit
+upon the Society of which Tyson was a Fellow and from which the
+_imprimatur_ was obtained.
+
+However this may be, the sway over its Fellows' publications was
+exercised, and indeed very excellent arguments might be adduced for the
+reassumption of such a sway even to-day.[26]
+
+Though the _imprimatur_ in question has fallen into desuetude, it is, as
+we all know, the commonest of things for the introductions to works of
+science to occupy some often considerable part of their space with
+acknowledgments of assistance given by learned friends who have read the
+manuscript or the proofs and made suggestions with the object of
+improving the book or adding to its accuracy. Any person who has written
+a book can feel nothing but gratitude towards those who have helped him
+to avoid the errors and slips to which even the most careful are
+subject.
+
+So that such acknowledgments of assistance have come to be almost what
+the lawyers call "common form." What they really amount to is a
+proclamation on the part of the author that he has done his best to
+ensure that his book is free from mistakes. Now the _imprimatur_ really
+amounts to the same thing, for it is, of course, confined to books or
+parts of books where theology or philosophy trenching upon theology is
+concerned. Thus a book may deal largely, perhaps mainly, with scientific
+points, yet necessarily include allusions to theological dogmas. The
+_imprimatur_ to such a book would relate solely and entirely to the
+theological parts, just as the advice of an architectural authority on a
+point connected with that subject in a work in which it was mentioned
+only in an incidental manner, would refer to that point, and to nothing
+else. Perhaps it should be added, that no author is obliged to obtain an
+_imprimatur_ any more than he is compelled to seek advice on any other
+point in connection with his book. "_Nihil Obstat_," says the skilled
+referee: "I see no reason to suppose that there is anything in all this
+which contravenes theological principles." To which the authority
+appealed to adds "_imprimatur_:" "Then by all means let it be printed."
+The procedure is no doubt somewhat more stately and formal than the
+modern system of acknowledgments, yet in actual practice there is but
+little to differentiate the two methods of ensuring, so far as is
+possible, that the work is free from mistakes. That neither the
+assistance of friends nor the _imprimatur_ of authorities is infallible
+is proved by the facts that mistakes do creep into works of science,
+however carefully examined, and that more than one book with an
+_imprimatur_ has, none the less, found its way on to the _Index_. Before
+leaving this branch of the subject one cannot refrain from calling
+attention to another point. How often in advertisements of books do we
+not see quotations from reviews in authoritative journals--a medical
+work from the _Lancet_, a physical or chemical from _Nature_? Frequently
+too we see "Mr. So-and-So, the well-known authority on the subject, says
+of this book, etc., etc." What are all these authoritative commendations
+but an _imprimatur_ up to date?
+
+Passing from the _imprimatur_ to a closer consideration of our subject,
+it is above all things necessary to take the advice of Samuel Johnson
+and clear our minds of cant. Every person in this world--save perhaps a
+Robinson Crusoe on an otherwise uninhabited island, and he only because
+of his solitary condition--is in bondage more or less to others; that is
+to say, has his freedom more or less interfered with. That this
+interference is in the interests of the community and so, in the last
+analysis, in the interests of the person interfered with himself, in no
+way weakens the argument; it is rather a potent adjuvant to it. However
+much I may dislike him and however anxious I may be to injure him, I may
+not go out and set fire to my neighbour's house nor to his rick-yard,
+unless I am prepared to risk the serious legal penalties which will be
+my lot if I am detected in the act. I may not, if I am a small and
+active boy, make a slide in the public street in frosty weather, unless
+I am prepared--as the small boy usually is--to run the gauntlet of the
+police. In a thousand ways my freedom, or what I call my freedom, is
+interfered with: it is the price which I pay for being one item of a
+social organism and for being in turn protected against others, who, in
+virtue of that protection, are in their turn deprived of what they might
+call their liberty.
+
+No one can have failed to observe that this interference with personal
+liberty becomes greater day by day. It is a tendency of modern
+governments, based presumably upon increased experience, to increase
+these protective regulations. Thus we have laws against adulteration of
+food, against the placing of buildings concerned with obnoxious trades
+in positions where people will be inconvenienced by them. We make
+persons suffering from infectious diseases isolate themselves, and if
+they cannot do this at home, we make them go to the fever hospital.
+Further, we insist upon the doctor, whose position resembles that of a
+confessor, breaking his obligation of professional secrecy and informing
+the authorities as to the illness of his patient. We interfere with the
+liberty of men and women to work as long as they like or to make their
+children labour for excessive hours. We insist upon dangerous machinery
+being fenced in. In a thousand ways we--the State--interfere with the
+liberty of our fellows. Finally, when the needs of the community are
+most pressing we interfere most with the freedom of the subject. Thus,
+in these islands, we were recently living under a Defence of the Realm
+Act--with which no reasonable person quarrelled. Yet it forbad many
+things not only harmless in themselves but habitually permitted in times
+of peace. We were subject to penalties if we showed lighted windows:
+they must be shuttered or provided with heavy curtains. We might not
+travel in railway carriages at night with the blinds undrawn. The papers
+might not publish, nor we say in public, things which in time of peace
+would go unnoticed. There were a host of other matters to which allusion
+need not be made. Enough has been said to show that the State has and
+exerts the right to control the actions of those who belong to it, and
+that in time of stress it can and does very greatly intensify that
+control and does so without arousing any real or widespread discontent.
+Of course we all grumble, but then everybody, except its own members,
+always does more or less grumble at anything done by any government:
+that is the ordinary state of affairs. But at any rate we submit
+ourselves, more or less gracefully, to this restraint because we
+persuade ourselves or are persuaded that it is for the good of the State
+and thus for the good of ourselves, both as private individuals and as
+members of the State.
+
+And many of us, at any rate, comfort ourselves with the thought that a
+great many of the regulations which appear to be most tyrannical and
+most to interfere with the natural liberty of mankind are devised not
+with that end in view but with the righteous intention of protecting
+those weaker members of the body who are unable to protect themselves.
+If the State does not stand by such members and offer itself as their
+shield and support, it has no claim to our obedience, no real right to
+exist, and so we put up with the inconvenience, should such arise, on
+account of the protection given to the weaker members and often extended
+to those who would by no means feel pleased if they heard themselves
+thus described.
+
+Let us substitute the Church for the State and let us remember that
+there are times when she is at closer grips with the powers of evil than
+may be the case at other times. The parallel is surely sufficiently
+close.
+
+So far as earthly laws can control one, no one is obliged to be a member
+of the Catholic Church nor a citizen of the British Empire. I can, if I
+choose, emigrate to America, in process of time naturalise myself there
+and join the Christian Science organisation or any other body to which I
+find myself attracted. But as long as I remain a Catholic and a British
+citizen I must submit myself to the restrictions imposed by the bodies
+with which I have elected to connect myself. We arrive at the conclusion
+then that the ordinary citizen, even if he never adverts to the fact, is
+in reality controlled and his liberty limited in all sorts of
+directions.
+
+Now the scientific man, in his own work, is subject to all sorts of
+limitations, apart altogether from the limitations to which, as an
+ordinary member of the State, he has to submit himself.
+
+He is restricted by science: he is not completely free but is bound by
+knowledge--the knowledge which he or others have acquired.
+
+To say he is limited by it is not to say that he is imprisoned by it or
+in bondage to it. "One does not lose one's intellectual liberty when one
+learns mathematics," says the late Monsignor Benson in one of his
+letters, "though one certainly loses the liberty of doing sums wrong or
+doing them by laborious methods!"
+
+Before setting out upon any research, the careful man of science sets
+himself to study "the literature of the subject" as he calls it. He
+delves into all sorts of out-of-the-way periodicals to ascertain what
+such a man has written upon such a point. All this he does in order that
+he may avoid doing a piece of work over again unnecessarily:
+_unnecessarily_, for it maybe actually necessary to repeat it, if it is
+of very great importance and if it has not been repeated and verified by
+other observers. Further, he delves into this literature because it is
+thus that he hopes to avoid the many blind alleys which branch off from
+every path of research, delude their explorer with vain hopes and
+finally bring him face to face with a blank wall. In a word the inquirer
+consults his authorities and when he finds them worthy of reliance, he
+limits his freedom by paying attention to them. He does not say: "How am
+I held in bondage by this assertion that the earth goes round the sun,"
+but accepting that fact, he rejects such of his conclusions as are
+obviously irreconcilable with it. Surely this is plain common sense and
+the man who acted otherwise would be setting himself a quite impossible
+task. It is the weakness of the "heuristic method" that it sets its
+pupils to find out things which many abler men have spent years in
+investigating. The man who sets out to make a research, without first
+ascertaining what others have done in that direction, proposes to
+accumulate in himself the abilities and the life-work of all previous
+generations of labourers in that corner of the scientific vineyard.
+
+There is a somewhat amusing and certainly interesting instance of this
+which will bear quotation. The late Mr. Grant Allen, who knew something
+of quite a number of subjects though perhaps not very much about any of
+them, devoted most of his time and energies (outside his stories, some
+of which are quite entertaining) to not always very accurate essays in
+natural history. One day, however, his evil genius prompted him to write
+and, worse still, to publish a book entitled _Force and Energy: A Theory
+of Dynamics_, in which he purported to deal with a matter of which he
+knew far less even than he did about animated nature. Mark the
+inevitable result! A copy of the book was forwarded to the journal
+_Nature_, and sent by its editor to be dealt with by the competent hands
+of Sir Oliver (then Professor) Lodge.[27]
+
+This is how that eminent authority dealt with it. "There exists a
+certain class of mind," he commences, "allied perhaps to the Greek
+sophist variety, to which ignorance of a subject offers no sufficient
+obstacle to the composition of a treatise upon it." It may be rash to
+suggest that this type of mind is well developed in philosophers of the
+Spencerian school, though it would be possible to adduce some evidence
+in support of such a suggestion. "In the volume before us," he
+continues, "Mr. Grant Allen sets to work to reconstruct the fundamental
+science of dynamics, an edifice which, since the time of Galileo and
+Newton, has been standing on what has seemed a fairly secure and
+substantial basis, but which he seems to think it is now time to
+demolish in order to make room for a newly excogitated theory. The
+attempt is audacious and the result--what might have been expected. The
+performance lends itself indeed to the most scathing criticism; blunders
+and misstatements abound on nearly every page, and the whole thing is
+simply an emanation of mental fog." It would occupy too much space to
+reproduce this criticism with any fullness, but one or two points
+exceedingly germane to our subject can hardly go without notice.
+Alluding to a certain question, which seems to have greatly bothered Mr.
+Allen and likewise Mr. Clodd, who, it would appear, was associated with
+him in this performance, the reviewer says: "The puzzle was solved
+completely long ago, in the clearest possible manner, and the
+'_Principia_' is the witness to it; but it is still felt to be a
+difficulty by beginners, and I suppose there is no offence in applying
+this harmless epithet to both Mr. Grant Allen and Mr. Clodd, so far as
+the truths of dynamics and physics are concerned." One last quotation:
+"The thing which strikes one most forcibly about the physics of these
+paper philosophers is the extraordinary contempt which, if they are
+consistent, they must or ought to feel for men of science. If Newton,
+Lagrange, Gauss, and Thompson, to say nothing of smaller men, have
+muddled away their brains in concocting a scheme of dynamics wherein the
+very definitions are all wrong; if they have arrived at a law of
+conservation of energy without knowing what the word energy means, or
+how to define it; if they have to be set right by an amateur who has
+devoted a few weeks or months to the subject and acquired a rude
+smattering of some of its terms, 'what intolerable fools they must all
+be!'" Such is the result of asserting one's freedom by escaping the
+limitations of knowledge! We see what happens when a person sets out to
+deal with science untrammelled by any considerations as to what others
+have thought and established. The necessary result is that he plunges
+headforemost into all or most of the errors which were pitfalls to the
+first labourers in the field. Or, again, he painfully and uselessly
+pursues the blind alleys which they had wandered in, and from which a
+perusal of their works would have warned off later comers.
+
+Oh, irony of fate! the same thing precisely happens when men of
+scientific eminence indulge in religious dissertations, for of course,
+though it is not quite so obvious to such writers, the same blunder is
+quite possible in non-scientific fields of knowledge. I once asked one
+versed in theology what he thought of the religious articles of a
+distinguished man, unfamiliar himself with theology, yet, none the less,
+then splashing freely and to the great admiration of the ignorant, in
+the theological pool. His reply was that in so far as they were at all
+constructive, they consisted mostly of exploded heresies of the first
+century. Is not this precisely what one would have expected _a priori_?
+A man commencing to write on science or religion who neglects the work
+of earlier writers places himself in the position of the first students
+of the subject and very naturally will make the same mistakes as they
+made. He refuses to be hampered and biased by knowledge, and the result
+follows quite inevitably. "A scientist," says Monsignor Benson, "is
+hampered and biased by knowing the earth goes round the sun." The fact
+of the matter is that the man of science is not a solitary figure, a
+_chimaera bombinans in vacuo_. In whatever direction he looks he is faced
+by the figures of other workers and he is limited and "hampered" by
+their work. Nor are these workers all of them in his own area of
+country, for the biologist, for example, cannot afford to neglect the
+doings of the chemist; if he does he is bound to find himself led into
+mistakes. No doubt the scientific man is at times needlessly hampered by
+theories which he and others at the time take to be fairly well
+established facts, but which after all turn out to be nothing of the
+kind. This in no way weakens the argument, but rather by giving an
+additional reason for caution, strengthens it.
+
+If we carefully consider the matter we shall be unable to come to any
+other conclusion than that every writer, even of the wildest form of
+fiction, is in some way and to some extent hampered and limited by
+knowledge, by facts, by things as they are or as they appear to be. That
+will be admitted; but it will be urged that the hampering and limiting
+with which we have been dealing is not merely legitimate but inevitable,
+whereas the hampering and limiting--should such there be--on the part of
+the Church is wholly illegitimate and indefensible.
+
+"All that you say is no doubt true," our antagonist will urge, "but you
+have still to show that your Church has any right or title to interfere
+in these matters. And even if you can make some sort of case for her
+interference, you have still to disprove what so many people believe,
+namely, that the right, real or assumed, has not been arbitrarily used
+to the damage, or at least to the delay of scientific progress.
+Chemistry," we may suppose our antagonist continuing, "no doubt has a
+legitimate right to have its say, even to interfere and that
+imperatively, where chemical considerations invade the field of biology,
+for example. But what similar right does religion possess? For
+instance," he might proceed, "some few years ago a distinguished
+physiologist, then occupying the Chair of the British Association,
+invoked the behaviour of certain chemical substances known as colloids
+in favour of his anti-vitalistic conclusions. At once he was answered by
+a number of equally eminent chemists that the attitude he had adopted
+was quite incompatible with facts as known to them; in a word, that
+chemistry disagreed with his ideas as to colloids. Everybody admitted
+that the chemists must have the final word on this subject: are you now
+claiming that religion or theology, or whatever you choose to call it,
+is also entitled to a say in a matter of that kind?" This supposititious
+conversation illustrates the confusion which exists in many minds as to
+the point at issue. One science is entitled to contradict another, just
+as one scientific man is entitled to contradict another on a question of
+fact. But on a question of _fact_ a theologian is not entitled--_qua_
+theologian--nor would he be expected to claim to be entitled, to
+contradict a man of science.
+
+It ought to be widely known, though it is not, that the idea that
+theologians can or wish to intrude--again _qua_ theologians--in
+scientific disputes as to chemical, biological, or other facts, is a
+fantastic idea without real foundation save that of the one mistake of
+the kind made in the case of Galileo and never repeated--a mistake, let
+us hasten to add, made by a disciplinary authority and--as all parties
+admit--in no way involving questions of infallibility. To this case we
+will revert shortly. Meanwhile it may be briefly stated that the claim
+made by the Church is in connection with some few--some very few--of
+the _theories_ which men of science build up upon the facts which they
+have brought to light. Some of these theories do appear to contradict
+theological dogmas, or at least may seem to simple people to be
+incompatible with such dogmas, just as the people of his
+time--Protestants by the way, no less than Catholics--did really think
+that Galileo's theory conflicted with Holy Writ. In such cases, and in
+such cases alone, the Church holds that she has at least the right to
+say that such a theory should not be proclaimed to be true until there
+is sufficient proof for it to satisfy the scientific world that the
+point has been demonstrated.
+
+This is really what is meant by the tyranny of the Church; and it may
+now be useful to consider briefly what can be said for her position. We
+must begin by looking at the matter from the Church's standpoint. It is
+a good rule to endeavour to understand your opponent's position before
+you try to confute him; an excellent rule seldom complied with by
+anti-Catholic controversialists. Now the Church starts with the
+proposition that man has an immortal soul destined to eternal happiness
+or eternal misery, and she proceeds to claim that she has been divinely
+constituted to help man to enjoy a future of happiness. Of course these
+are opinions which all do not share, and with the arguments for and
+against which we cannot here deal. If a man is quite sure that he has no
+soul and that there is no hereafter there is nothing more to be said
+than: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Nothing very much
+matters in this world except that we should make ourselves as
+comfortable as we can during the few years we have to spend in it.
+
+Again, there are others who, whilst believing the first doctrine set
+down above, will have none of the other. With them we enter into no
+argument here, and only say that to have a guide is better than to have
+no guide. Catholics, who accept gratefully her guidance, do believe that
+the Church can help a man to save his soul, and that she is entrusted,
+to that end, with certain powers. Her duty is to preserve and guard the
+Christian Revelation--the scheme of doctrine regarding belief and
+conduct by which Jesus Christ taught that souls were to be saved. She is
+not an arbitrary ruler. Her office is primarily that of Judge and
+Interpreter of the deposit of doctrine entrusted to her.
+
+In this she claims to be safeguarded against error, though her
+infallible utterances would seem incredibly few, if summed up and
+presented to the more ignorant of her critics. She also claims to derive
+from her Founder legislative power by which she can make decrees, unmake
+them or modify and vary them to suit different times and circumstances.
+She rightfully claims the obedience of her children to this exercise of
+her authority, but such disciplinary enactments, by their very nature
+variable and modifiable, do not and cannot come within the province of
+her infallibility, and admittedly they need not be always perfectly wise
+or judicious. Such disciplinary utterances, it may be added, at least
+in the field of which we are treating, indeed in any field, are also
+incredibly few when due regard is had to the enormous number of cases
+passing under the Church's observation.
+
+We saw just now that the State exercised a very large jurisdiction for
+the purpose of protecting the weak who were unable or little able to
+protect themselves. It is really important to remember, when we are
+considering the powers of the Church and her exercise of them, that
+these disciplinary powers are put in operation, not from mere arrogance
+or an arbitrary love of domination--as too many suppose--but with the
+primary intention of protecting and helping the weaker members of the
+flock. If the Church consisted entirely of theological experts a good
+deal of this exercise of disciplinary power might very likely be
+regarded as wholly unnecessary. Thus the Church freely concedes not only
+to priests and theologians, but to other persons adequately instructed
+in her teaching, full permission to read books which she has placed on
+her black list or _Index_--from which, in other words, she has warned
+off the weaker members of the flock.
+
+The net of Peter, however, as all very well know, contains a very great
+variety of fish, and--to vary the metaphor--to the fisherman was given
+charge not only of the sheep--foolish enough, heaven knows!--but also of
+the still more helpless lambs. Thus it becomes the duty and the
+privilege of the successors of the fisherman to protect the sheep and
+the lambs, and not merely to protect them from wild beasts who may try
+to do harm from without, but quite as much from the wild rams of the
+flock who are capable of doing a great deal of injury from within. In
+one of his letters, from which quotation has already been made, the late
+Monsignor Benson sums up, in homely, but vivid language, the point with
+which we have just been dealing. "Here are the lambs of Christ's flock,"
+he writes: "Is a stout old ram to upset and confuse them when he needn't
+... even though he is right? The flock must be led gently and turned in
+a great curve. We can't all whip round in an instant. We are tired and
+discouraged and some of us are exceedingly stupid and obstinate. Very
+well; then the rams can't be allowed to make brilliant excursions in all
+directions and upset us all. We shall get there some day, if we are
+treated patiently. We are Christ's lambs after all."
+
+The protection of the weak: surely, if it be deemed both just and wise
+on the part of the civil government to protect its subjects by
+legislation in regard to adulterated goods, contagious diseases,
+unhealthy workshops and dangerous machinery, why may not the Church
+safeguard her children, especially her weaker children, the special
+object of her care and solicitude, from noxious intellectual foods?
+
+It is just here that the question of the _Index_ arises. Put briefly,
+this is a list of books which are not to be read by Catholics unless
+they have permission to read them--a permission which, as we have just
+seen, is never refused when any good reason can be given for the
+request. I can understand the kind of person who says: "Exactly, locking
+up the truth; why not let everybody read just what they like?" To which
+I would reply that every careful parent has an _Index Prohibitorius_ for
+his household; or ought to have one if he has not. I once knew a woman
+who allowed her daughter to plunge into _Nana_ and other works of that
+character as soon as she could summon up enough knowledge of French to
+fathom their meaning. The daughter grew up and the result has not been
+encouraging to educationists thinking of proceeding on similar lines.
+The State also has its _Index Prohibitorius_ and will not permit
+indecent books nor indecent pictures to be sold. Enough: let us again
+clear our minds of cant. There is a limit with regard to publications in
+every decent State and every decent house: it is only a question where
+the line is drawn. It is obvious that the Church must be permitted at
+least as much privilege in this matter as is claimed by every
+respectable father of a family.
+
+We need not pursue the question of the _Index_ any further, but before
+we leave it let us for a moment turn to another accusation levelled
+against Catholic men of science by anti-Catholic writers, that of
+concealing their real opinions on scientific matters, and even of
+professing views which they do not really hold, out of a craven fear of
+ecclesiastical denunciations. The attitude which permits of such an
+accusation is hardly courteous, but, stripped of its verbiage, that is
+the accusation as it is made. Now, as there are usually at least some
+smouldering embers of fire where there is smoke, there is just one small
+item of truth behind all this pother. No Catholic, scientific man or
+otherwise, who really honours his Faith would desire wilfully to advance
+theories apparently hostile to its teaching. Further, even if he were
+convinced of the truth of facts which might appear--it could only be
+"appear"--to conflict with that teaching, he would, in expounding them,
+either show how they could be harmonised with his religion, or, if he
+were wise, would treat his facts from a severely scientific point of
+view and leave other considerations to the theologians trained in
+directions almost invariably unexplored by scientific men. Perhaps the
+memory of old, far-off, unhappy events should not be recalled, but it is
+pertinent to remark that the troubles in connection with a man whose
+name once stood for all that was stalwart in Catholicism, did not
+originate in, nor were they connected with, any of the scientific books
+and papers of which the late Professor Mivart was the author, but with
+those theological essays which all his friends must regret that he
+should ever have written.
+
+It may not be waste of time briefly to consider two of the instances
+commonly brought up as examples when the allegation with which we are
+dealing is under consideration.
+
+First of all let us consider the case of Gabriel Fallopius, who
+lived--it is very important to note the date--1523-1562; a Catholic and
+a churchman. Now it is gravely asserted that Fallopius committed
+himself to misleading views, views which he knew to be misleading,
+because he thought that he was thereby serving the interest of the
+Church. What he said concerned fossils, then beginning to puzzle the
+scientific world of the day. Confronted with these objects and living,
+as he did, in an unscientific age, when the seven days of creation were
+interpreted as periods of twenty-four hours each and the universality of
+the Noachian deluge was accepted by everybody, it would have been
+something like a miracle if he had at once fathomed the true meaning of
+the shark's teeth, elephant's bones, and other fossil remains which came
+under his notice. His idea was that all these things were mere
+concretions "generated by fermentation in the spots where they were
+found," as he very quaintly and even absurdly put it. The accusation,
+however, is not that Fallopius made a mistake--as many another man has
+done--but that he deliberately expressed an opinion which he did not
+hold and did so from religious motives. Of course, this includes the
+idea that he knew what the real explanation was, for had he not known
+it, he could not have been guilty of making a false statement. There is
+no evidence whatever that Fallopius ever had so much as a suspicion of
+the real explanation, nor, it may be added, had any other man of science
+for the century which followed his death.
+
+Then there arose another Catholic churchman, Nicolaus Stensen
+(1631-1686), who, by the way, ended his days as a bishop, who did solve
+the riddle, giving the answer which we accept to-day as correct, and on
+whom was conferred by his brethren two hundred years later the title of
+"The Father of Geology." It is a little difficult to understand how the
+"unchanging Church" should have welcomed, or at least in no way objected
+to, Stensen's views when the mere entertainment of them by Fallopius is
+supposed to have terrified him into silence. But when the story of
+Fallopius is mistold, as indicated above, it need hardly be said that
+the story of Stensen is never so much as alluded to.
+
+The real facts of the case are these: Fallopius was one of the most
+distinguished men of science of his day. Every medical student becomes
+acquainted with his name because it is attached to two parts of the
+human body which he first described. He made a mistake about fossils,
+and that is the plain truth--as we now know, a most absurd mistake, but
+that is all. As we hinted above, he is very far from being the only
+scientific man who has made a mistake. Huxley had a very bad fall over
+_Bathybius_ and was man enough to admit that he was wrong. Curiously
+enough, what Huxley thought a living thing really was a concretion, just
+as what Fallopius thought a concretion had been a living thing.
+
+Another extremely curious fact is that another distinguished man of
+science, who lived three hundred years later than Fallopius and had all
+the knowledge which had accumulated during that prolific period to
+assist him, the late Philip Gosse, fell into the same pit as Fallopius.
+As his son tells us, he wrote a book to prove that when the sudden act
+of creation took place the world came into existence so constructed as
+to bear the appearance of a place which had for aeons been inhabited by
+living things, or, as some of his critics unkindly put it, "that God hid
+the fossils in the rocks in order to tempt geologists into infidelity."
+Gosse had the real answer under his eyes which Fallopius had not, for
+the riddle was unread in the latter's days. Yet Gosse's really
+unpardonable mistake was attributed to himself alone, and "Plymouth
+Brethrenism," which was the sect to which he belonged, was not saddled
+with it, nor have the Brethren been called obscurantists because of it.
+
+Of course there is a second string to the accusation we are dealing
+with. If the scientific man did really express new and perhaps startling
+opinions, they would have been much newer and much more startling had he
+not held himself in for fear of the Church and said only about half of
+what he might have said. It is the half instead of the whole loaf of the
+former accusation. Thus, in its notice of Stensen, the current issue of
+the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ says: "Cautiously at first, for fear of
+offending orthodox opinion, but afterwards more boldly, he proclaimed
+his opinion that these objects (_viz._ fossils) had once been parts of
+living animals."
+
+One may feel quite certain that if Stensen had not been a Catholic
+ecclesiastic this notice would have run--and far more
+truthfully--"Cautiously at first, until he felt that the facts at his
+disposal made his position quite secure, and then more boldly, etc.
+etc."
+
+What in the ordinary man of science is caution, becomes cowardice in the
+Catholic. We shall find another example of this in the case of Buffon
+(1707-1788) often cited as that of a man who believed all that Darwin
+believed and one hundred years before Darwin, and who yet was afraid to
+say it because of the Church to which he belonged. This mistake is
+partly due to that lamentable ignorance of Catholic teaching, not to say
+that lamentable incapacity for clear thinking, on these matters, which
+afflicts some non-Catholic writers. Let us take an example from an
+eminently fairly written book, in which, dealing with Buffon, the author
+says: "I cannot agree with those who think that Buffon was an
+out-and-out evolutionist, who concealed his opinions for fear of the
+Church. No doubt he did trim his sails--the palpably insincere _Mais
+non, il est certain par la revelation que tous les animaux ont egalement
+participe a la grace de la creation_, following hard upon the too bold
+hypothesis of the origin of all species from a single one, is proof of
+it." Of course it is nothing of the kind, for, whatever Buffon may have
+meant, and none but himself could tell us, it is perfectly clear that
+whether creation was mediate (as under transformism considered from a
+Christian point of view it would be) or immediate, every created thing
+would participate in the grace of creation, which is just the point
+which the writer from whom the quotation has been made has missed.
+
+The same writer furnishes us with the real explanation of Buffon's
+attitude when he says that Buffon was "too sane and matter-of-fact a
+thinker to go much beyond his facts, and his evolution doctrine remained
+always tentative." Buffon, like many another man, from St. Augustine
+down to his own times, considered the transformist explanation of living
+nature. He saw that it unified and simplified the conceptions of species
+and that there were certain facts which seemed strongly to support it.
+But he does not seem to have thought that they were sufficient to
+establish it and he puts forward his views in the tentative manner which
+has just been suggested.
+
+The fact is that those who father the accusations with which we have
+been dealing either do not know, or scrupulously conceal their
+knowledge, that what they proclaim to be scientific cowardice is really
+scientific caution, a thing to be lauded and not to be decried.
+
+Let us turn to apply the considerations with which we have been
+concerned to the case of Galileo, to which generally misunderstood
+affair we must very briefly allude, since it is the standby of
+anti-Catholic controversialists. Monsignor Benson, in connection with
+the quotation recently cited, proclaimed himself "a violent defender of
+the Cardinals against Galileo." Perhaps no one will be surprised at his
+attitude, but those who are not familiar with his _Life and Letters_
+will certainly be surprised to learn that Huxley, after examining into
+the question, "arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College
+of Cardinals had rather the best of it."[28]
+
+None the less it is the stock argument. Father Hull, S. J., whose
+admirable, outspoken, and impartial study of the case[29] should be on
+everybody's bookshelves, freely admits that the Roman Congregations made
+a mistake in this matter and thus takes up a less favourable position
+towards them than even the violently anti-Catholic Huxley.
+
+No one will deny that the action of the Congregation was due to a desire
+to prevent simple persons from having their faith upset by a theory
+which seemed at the time to contradict the teaching of the Bible.
+Remember that it was only a theory and that, when it was put forward,
+and indeed for many years afterwards, it was not only a theory, but one
+supported by no sufficient evidence. It was not in fact until many years
+after Galileo's death that final and convincing evidence as to the
+accuracy of his views was laid before the scientific world. There can be
+but little doubt that if Galileo had been content to discuss his theory
+with other men of science, and not to lay it down as a matter of proved
+fact--which, as we have seen, it was not--he would never have been
+condemned. Whilst we may admit, with Father Hull, that a mistake was
+made in this case, we may urge, with Cardinal Newman, that it is the
+only case in which such a thing has happened--surely a remarkable fact.
+It is not for want of opportunities. Father Hull very properly cites
+various cases where a like difficulty might possibly have arisen, but
+where, as a matter of fact, it has not. For example, the geographical
+universality of the Deluge was at one time, and that not so very long
+ago, believed to be asserted by the Bible; while, on the other hand,
+geologists seemed to be able to show, and in the event did show, that
+such a view was scientifically untenable. The attention of theologians
+having been called to this matter, and a further study made of passages
+which until then had probably attracted but little notice, and quite
+certainly had never been considered from the new point of view, it
+became obvious that the meaning which had been attached to the passages
+in question was not the necessary meaning, but on the contrary, a
+strained interpretation of the words. No public fuss having arisen about
+this particular difficulty, the whole matter was gradually and quietly
+disposed of. As Father Hull says, "the new view gradually filtered down
+from learned circles to the man in the street, so that nowadays the
+partiality of the Deluge is a matter of commonplace knowledge among all
+educated Christians, and is even taught to the rising generation in
+elementary schools."
+
+In accordance with the wise provisions of the Encyclical
+_Providentissimus Deus_, with which all educated Catholics should make
+themselves familiar, conflicts have been avoided on this, and on other
+points, such as the general theory of evolution and the various problems
+connected with it; the antiquity of man upon the earth and other
+matters as to which science is still uncertain. Some of these points
+might seem to conflict with the Bible and the teachings of the Church.
+As Catholics we can rest assured that the true explanation, whenever it
+emerges, cannot be opposed to the considered teaching of the Church.
+What the Church does--and surely it must be clear that from her
+standpoint she could not do less--is to instruct Catholic men of science
+not to proclaim _as proved facts_ such modern theories--and there are
+many of them--as still remain wholly unproved, when these theories are
+such as might seem to conflict with the teaching of the Church. This is
+very far from saying that Catholics are forbidden to study such
+theories.
+
+On the contrary, they are encouraged to do so, and that, need it be
+said, with the one idea of ascertaining the truth? Men of science,
+Catholic and otherwise, have, as a mere matter of fact, been time and
+again encouraged by Popes and other ecclesiastical authorities to go on
+searching for the truth, never, however, neglecting the wise maxim that
+all things must be proved. So long as a theory is unproved, it must be
+candidly admitted that it is a crime against science to proclaim it to
+be incontrovertible truth, yet this crime is being committed every day.
+It is really against it that the _magisterium_ of the Church is
+exercised. The wholesome discipline which she exercises might also be
+exercised to the great benefit of the ordinary reading public by some
+central scientific authority, can such be imagined, endowed with the
+right to say (and in any way likely to be listened to): "Such and such a
+statement is interesting--even extremely interesting--but so far one
+must admit that no sufficient proof is forthcoming to establish it as a
+fact: it ought not, therefore, to be spoken of as other than a theory,
+nor proclaimed as fact."
+
+Such constraint when rightly regarded is not or would not be a shackling
+of the human intellect, but a kindly and intelligent guidance of those
+unable to form a proper conclusion themselves. Such is the idea of the
+Church in the matter with which we have been dealing.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 23: _Darwiniana_, p. 147.]
+
+  [Footnote 24: See, for example, his _Life and Letters_,
+  i., 307.]
+
+  [Footnote 25: _Hume_, _English Men of Letters Series_, p. 135.]
+
+  [Footnote 26: Of course, it may be argued, no Fellow need have
+  applied for an _imprimatur_; he did it _ex majori cantela_ as
+  the lawyers say. This may be so, but the same applies to the
+  ecclesiastical _imprimatur_.]
+
+  [Footnote 27: The review from which the following quotations
+  are made appeared in _Nature_ on January 24, 1889.]
+
+  [Footnote 28: Vol. ii., p. 113.]
+
+  [Footnote 29: _Galileo and His Condemnation_, Catholic Truth
+  Society of England.]
+
+
+
+
+V. SCIENCE AND THE WAR
+
+
+Amongst various important matters now brought to a sharper focus in the
+public eye, few, if any, require more careful attention than that which
+is concerned with science, its value, its position, its teachings, and
+how it should be taught. No one who has followed the domestic
+difficulties due to our neglect of the warnings of scientific men can
+fail to see how we have had to suffer because of the lax conduct of
+those responsible for these things in the past.
+
+Within the first few weeks after the war broke out--to take one
+example--every medical man was the recipient of a document telling him
+of the expected shortage in a number of important drugs and suggesting
+the substitutes which he might employ. It was a timely warning; but it
+need never have been issued if we had not allowed the manufacture of
+drugs, and especially those of the so-called "synthetic" group, to drift
+almost entirely into the hands of the Badische Aniline Fabrik, and
+kindred firms in Germany. This difficulty, now partly overcome, is one
+which never would have arisen but for the deaf ear turned to the
+warnings of the scientific chemists. British pharmaceutical chemists,
+with one or two exceptions, had been relying upon foreign sources not
+only for synthetic drugs but actually for the raw materials of many of
+their preparations--such, for example, as aconite, belladonna, henbane,
+all of which can be freely grown--which even grow wild--in these
+islands; even, incredible as it may seem, for foxglove leaves. These
+things with many others were imported from Germany and Austria. Here
+again leeway has had to be made up; but it ought never to have been
+necessary, and now that the war is over steps should be taken to see
+that it never need be necessary again. The encouragement of British
+herb-gardens and of scientific experiment therein on the best method of
+culture for the raw material of our organic medicines must certainly be
+matters early taken in hand.
+
+The classical example of the mortal injury done to British manufacture
+by the British manufacturer's former contempt for the scientific man is
+that of the aniline dyes, which are so closely associated with the
+synthetic drugs as to form one subject of discussion. Quite early in the
+war dye-stuffs ran short, and there was no means of replenishing the
+stock in Britain, nor even in America, these products having formed the
+staple of a colossal manufacture, with an enormous financial turnover,
+in Germany.
+
+Let us look at the history of these dyes. The first aniline dye was
+discovered quite by accident, in 1856, by the late Professor W. H.
+Perkin. He called it "mauve," from the French word for the mallow, the
+colour of whose flower it somewhat resembled. In 1862 there was an
+International Exhibition in London; and those who remembered it and its
+predecessor of 1851 have declared that the case of aniline
+dye-stuffs--for by that time quite a number of new pigments had been
+discovered--excited at the later the same attention as that given to the
+Koh-i-noor at the earlier. The invention, out of which grew the enormous
+German business already alluded to, and with which has been associated
+the discovery and manufacture of the synthetic drugs, was entirely
+British in its inception and in its early stages. Moreover the raw
+materials on which it depended, namely, gas-tar products, were to be had
+in greater abundance in England than anywhere else. Yet, at the time
+when the war broke out, this industry had been allowed almost entirely
+to drift into German hands.
+
+How was this? Let an expert reply. It was due, he tells us, to the
+neglect of "the repeated warnings which have been issued since that
+time" (_viz._ 1880, by which date the Germans had succeeded in capturing
+the trade in question) "in no uncertain voice by Meldola, Green, the
+Perkins (father and son), and many other English chemists." Further, he
+continues, two causes have invariably been indicated for the transfer of
+this industry to Germany--"first the neglect of organic chemistry in the
+Universities and colleges of this country" (a neglect which has long
+ceased), "and then the disregard by manufacturers of scientific methods
+and assistance and total indifference to the practice of research in
+connection with their processes and products." I remember talking some
+twenty-five years ago to a highly educated young student of Birmingham
+who was of German parentage though of English birth. He had just taken
+the degree of Doctor of Science in London University, and was on the eve
+of abandoning the adopted country of his parents for a position in the
+research laboratories of the Badische company, where he would be one
+among a number of chemists, running into hundreds, all engaged in
+research on gas-tar products. At that moment the great Birmingham
+gas-company was employing the services of one trained chemist.
+
+Such was and is the neglect of science by business men. Could it have
+been otherwise, considering their bringing up? Let me again be
+reminiscent. I suppose the public school in England (not a Catholic
+school, for I was then a Protestant) at which I pursued what were
+described as studies did not in any very marked degree differ from its
+sister schools throughout the country. How was science encouraged there?
+One hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time devoted weekly, not to
+Greek and Latin (that would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the
+writing of Greek and Latin prose and alleged Greek and Latin verse--that
+was the amount of time which was devoted to what was called science. I
+suppose I had an ingrained vocation for science, for it was the only
+subject, except English composition, in which I ever felt interest at
+school. If the vocation had not been there, any interest in the subject
+must necessarily have been slain once for all in me, as I am sure it was
+in scores of others, by the way it was taught; for the instruction was
+confided to the ordinary form-master, who doled out his questions from a
+text-book perfunctorily used and probably heartily despised by a man
+brought up on strict classical or mathematical lines. Our manufacturer
+is brought up in a school of this kind, and it would be a miracle if he
+emerged from it with any respect for science. Things have changed now,
+and for the better, as they have at most of the Universities; but we are
+dealing with the generation of manufacturers of my age who were largely
+responsible for the neglects now in question. Well, the boy left his
+school and went to Oxford or Cambridge, neither of which then greatly
+encouraged science. Its followers were, I believe, known as "Stinks
+Men." At any rate it is only comparatively recently that we have seen
+the splendid developments of to-day in those ancient institutions. One
+relic of the ancient days gives us an illuminating idea of how things
+used to be, just as a fossil shows us the environment of its day.[30]
+Trinity College, Dublin, has fine provision for scientific teaching, and
+a highly competent staff to teach. But in its constitution it shows the
+attitude towards science which till lately informed the older
+Universities.
+
+Trinity College has in its Fellowship system one of the most important
+series of pecuniary rewards perhaps in Europe, of an educational
+character. A man has only once to pass an examination, admittedly one of
+great severity and competitive in character, and thenceforward to go on
+living respectably and doing such duties as are committed to him, to be
+ensured an excellent and increasing income for life. How great the
+rewards are will be gathered from the fact that a distinguished occupant
+of one of these positions some years ago endeavoured--with complete
+success--to enforce on me the importance of the Fellowship examination
+by telling me that he had already received over L50,000 in emoluments as
+a result of his success. He has received a good deal more since, and I
+hope will continue to be the recipient of this shower of gold for many
+years to come.[31] No doubt much might be urged for this system, which
+was for a long time popular in China for the selection of Mandarins, and
+I am not criticising it here. What I want to emphasise is that the
+examination for these valuable positions is either classical or
+mathematical, and there it ends. The greatest biologist in the world
+would have as much chance of a Fellowship as the ragged urchin in the
+street unless he could "settle Hoti's business" or elucidate [Greek: P]
+or do other things of that kind. It is a luminous example of what
+was--must we say is?--thought of science in certain academic circles.
+Of course it may be urged--I have actually heard it urged--that nothing
+is science save that which is treatable by mathematical methods. It was
+a kind of inverted M. Jourdain who used this argument, a gentleman who
+imagined himself to have been teaching science during a long life
+without ever having effected what he supposed to be his object. Then,
+again, our manufacturer, whose object in life is to make money, is
+naturally, perhaps even necessarily, affected by the kind of salaries
+which highly trained and highly eminent men of science receive by way of
+reward for their work. Few, if any, receive anything like the emoluments
+attaching to the position of County Court Judge, and I know of only one
+case in which a Professor's income, to the delight and envy of all the
+teaching profession, actually, for a few years, soared somewhat near the
+empyrean of a Puisne Judge's reward.
+
+Perhaps this is not to be wondered at; for Parliament always contains
+many lawyers, and at the moment, I think, not a single scientific
+expert, at least among the Commons. This is not really a sordid
+argument, though it may appear so. The labourer, after all, is worthy of
+his hire; but in the scientific world it very, very seldom happens that
+the hire is worthy of the labourer. Even to this day there is plenty of
+truth in the description of the attitude of Mr. Meagles towards Mr.
+Doyce as detailed by the author of _Little Dorrit_. Perhaps that is
+partly because it is generally the man of business, and not the unhappy
+man of science, who gains the money produced by scientific discoveries.
+These are often, if not usually, made by accident, and by a man on the
+track of something else, on the elucidation of which he is probably so
+intent that he cannot spare time for side-issues, very likely never even
+thinks of them. Sir James Dewar discovered the principle of the "Thermos
+flask" whilst he was working at the exceedingly difficult subject of the
+liquefaction of air. I hope Sir James had the prescience to patent his
+discovery, and reap the reward which was due to him; but, if he did, he
+is one amongst a thousand who never took this trouble and of whom _Sic
+vos non vobis_ might well be said. When Sabatier had shown the
+importance of combinations of hydrogen effected by what is known as a
+catalyst, numerous patents were taken out--by other people, of
+course--on which were founded very flourishing businesses. Sabatier
+profited by none of these--so I understand. He received a Nobel prize
+for his discoveries; but another hath his heritage.
+
+Though science has not received any great encouragement, yet in spite of
+that--the cynic might say because of that--it has made amazing progress
+during the past half-century. Mr. Chesterton somewhere notes that "a
+time may easily come when we shall see the great outburst of science in
+the Nineteenth Century as something quite as splendid, brief, unique,
+and ultimately abandoned as the outburst of art at the Renaissance."
+That, of course, may be so, but as to the outburst there can be no
+question, nor of its persistence to the present day. That also is surely
+a curious phenomenon; for, as regards most other things, we seem to be
+in the trough of the wave, and not merely in these islands but all over
+the civilised world. In Art, in Music, in Literature, in the Drama, it
+would be difficult to argue in favour of a pre-eminence, or even of an
+equality of the present age, comparing it with its predecessors.
+
+Take the politicians of the world; it is perhaps difficult, even
+foolish, for us who are living with them to prophesy with any
+approximation of accuracy what the historian of a future day may say
+about them. He may sum them up as respectable, honest mediocrities
+trying to do their best under exceptionally difficult circumstances; he
+may put them lower; he may put them higher; he may differentiate between
+those of different nations; but there is little doubt that, with the
+exception of the American President, he will not be able to point to any
+one of the calibre of Pitt or of Bismarck or of the less severely tried
+Disraeli or Gladstone.
+
+But just the reverse is the case in science, which has men of the very
+first rank living, working, and discovering to-day. There are indeed
+signs that even our Government is cognizant of this. The creation of a
+Department of Industrial Scientific Research, the provision of a
+substantial income for the same, the increase of research-grants to
+learned societies, these and other things show that some attempt will be
+made to recognise the value of science to the State. Further, the
+lesson seems to have gone home to some few at least that there is no
+difference between what have been absurdly called Pure and Applied
+Science, since so very many "Applied" discoveries--such as the
+"Thermos"--arose in the course of what certainly would have been
+described as "Pure" researches.
+
+It is to the public advantage that every educated person should know
+something about science; nor is this by any means as big or difficult an
+achievement as some may imagine. It is not necessary to teach any very
+large number of persons very much about any particular science or group
+of sciences. What is really important is that people should imbibe some
+knowledge of scientific methods--of the meaning of science. This can be
+done from the study of quite a few fundamental propositions of any one
+science under a good teacher--a first essential. Any person thus
+educated will, for the remainder of his life, be able at least to
+understand what is meant by science and the scientific method of
+approaching a problem. He will not, like an educational troglodyte at a
+recent Conference, refuse to describe anything as science which is not
+capable of mathematical treatment, nor allude compendiously to
+physiological study as "the cutting up of frogs." In a word, he will be
+an educated man, which can no more be said of one ignorant of science
+than it can be of one whose mind has never experienced the softening
+influence of letters.
+
+So far, everybody whose opinion counts seems to be agreed; but in any
+plea for an extended and improved teaching of science, certain points
+ought not to be left out of count. In the first place, science is not
+the key to all locks; there are many important things--some of the most
+important things in life--with which it has nothing whatever to do. It
+will be well to recall Mr. Balfour's words at the opening of the
+National Physical Laboratory: "Science depends on measurement, and
+things not measurable are therefore excluded, or tend to be excluded,
+from its attention. But Life and Beauty and Happiness are not
+measurable. If there could be a unit of happiness, politics might begin
+to be scientific." It follows that there are a number of subjects on
+which the scientific man is just as fit, or as unfit, to express an
+opinion as any other man. The intense preoccupation which serious
+scientific studies demand, may render the man who is engaged therein
+even less competent to express an opinion on alien subjects than one
+whose attention, less concentrated, has time to range over diverse
+fields of study. Readers of Darwin's _Life_ will remember his confession
+that he had lost all taste for music, art, and literature; that he
+"could not endure to read a line of poetry" and found Shakespeare "so
+intolerably dull that it nauseated" him; and finally, that his mind
+seemed "to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out
+of a large collection of facts."
+
+Despite this warning as to the limits of science, we have no lack of
+instances of scientific men posing as authorities on subjects on which
+they had no real right to be heard, and, what is worse, being accepted
+as such by the uninstructed crowd. Thus Professor Huxley, who, as some
+one once said, "made science respectable," was wont to utter pontifical
+pronouncements on the subject of Home Rule for Ireland. His knowledge of
+that country was quite rudimentary, and his visits to it had been as few
+and as brief as if he had been its Sovereign; but that did not prevent
+him from delivering judgment, nor unfortunately deter many from
+following that judgment as if it had been inspired. I am not now arguing
+as to the rights and wrongs of Huxley's view on the matter in question:
+I have my own opinion on that. What I am urging is that his position,
+whether as a zoologist or, incidentally, as a great master of the
+English language, in no way entitled him to express an opinion or
+rendered him a better authority on such a question than any casual
+fellow-traveller in a railway carriage might easily be.
+
+This is bad enough; but what is far worse is when scientific experts on
+the strength of their study of Nature assume the right of uttering
+judicial pronouncements on moral and sociological questions, judgments
+some at least of which are subversive of both decency and liberty. Thus
+we have lately been told that it is "wanton cruelty" to keep a weak or
+sickly child alive; and the medical man, under a reformed system of
+medical ethics, is to have leave and licence to put an end to its life
+in a painless manner. To what enormities and dastardly agreements this
+might lead need hardly be suggested; and I am quite confident that the
+members of the honourable profession of physic, to which I am proud to
+belong, have no desire whatever for such a reform of the law or of their
+ethics. Then we are told in the same address (Bateson, _British
+Association Addresses in Australia_, 1914) that on the whole a decline
+in the birth-rate is rather a good thing, and that families averaging
+four children are quite enough to keep the world going comfortably. The
+date of this address will be noted; and the fact that the war, which was
+then just beginning, has probably caused its author and has caused
+everybody else to see the utter futility of such assertions.
+
+However, if we are to rear only four children per marriage, and if we
+are to give the medical man liberty to weed out the weaklings, it
+behoves us to see that the children whom we produce are of the best
+quality. Let us, therefore, hie to the stud-farm, observe its methods
+and proceed to apply them to the human race. We must definitely prevent
+feeble-minded persons from propagating their species. Within limits,
+that is a proposition with which all instructed persons would agree,
+though few, we imagine, would put their opinions so uncharitably as the
+lecturer did: "The union of such social vermin we should no more permit
+than we would allow parasites to breed on our own bodies." But we must
+go farther than this, and introduce all sorts of restrictions on
+matrimony, until finally it comes to be a matter to be arranged under
+rigid laws by a jury of elderly persons--all, we may feel perfectly
+sure, "cranks" of the first water.
+
+In what _milieu_ are their findings to take effect? It is very important
+to consider that. The author from whom I have been quoting tells us what
+we want to know. Man, he tells us, is "a rather long-lived animal, with
+great powers of enjoyment, if he does not deliberately forgo them." In
+the past, we are told, "superstitious and mythical ideas of sin have
+predominantly controlled these powers." We have changed all that now; as
+the parent in _Punch_ says to the crying child by the seashore, "You've
+come out to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself you shall!" So we are to
+plunge into the whirlpool of eugenic delights without any fear of that
+"bugbear of a hell" which another writer congratulates us on getting rid
+of. We can, it appears, enter upon our eugenic experiment without a
+single moral scruple to restrain us or a single religious restriction to
+interfere with us. In this soil is the plant to be grown, and the first
+weed to be eradicated is that of the right of personal choice of a
+partner for life, or for such other term as the law under the new
+_regime_ may require. Jack is to be torn from weeping Jill, and handed
+over to reluctant Joan, to whom he is personally displeasing and for
+whom he has not the slightest desire, and handed over because the
+Breeding Committee think it is likely to prove advantageous for the
+Coming Race. All that may be possible--or may not--but what then? When
+you are carrying out Mendelian experiments on peas, you can enclose your
+flowers in muslin bags and prevent anything interfering with your
+observations. And in the stud-farm you can keep the occupants shut up.
+
+But what are you going to do with Jack? and with Jill? And still more
+with Joan? They cannot be permanently isolated, neither are they
+restrained by any "mythical ideas of sin." They have been educated to
+the idea that their highest duty is to enjoy themselves. Why should they
+not do what they like? And consequently, as any reasoning person can
+see, "The Inevitable" must happen; and where is your experiment and
+where the Coming Race? It is perfectly useless for doctrinaires to
+argue, as doctrinaires will, about ethical restraints. Nature has _no_
+ethical restraints; and any ethical restraints which man has come from
+that higher nature of his which he does not share with the lower
+creation. What those whom the late Mr. Devas so aptly called
+"after-Christians" always forget is that the humane, the Christian side
+of life, which they as well as others exhibit, is due to the influence,
+lingering if you like, of Christianity. They ignore or forget the pit
+out of which they were digged.
+
+By another Eugenist we are told that willy-nilly every sound, healthy
+person of either sex must get married or at least betake him or herself
+to the business of propagating the race. That at least is the essence of
+his singularly offensive dictum that since the celibacy of the Catholic
+clergy and of members of Religious Orders deprives the State of a
+number of presumably excellent parents, "if monastic orders and
+institutions are to continue, they should be open only to the
+eugenically unfit."[32] If the religious call is not to be permitted to
+dispense a man or woman from entering the estate of matrimony, it may be
+assumed that nothing else, except an unfavourable report from the
+committee of selection, will do so. And, further, as the one object of
+all this is to bring super-children into the world, we must also assume
+that those who fail in this duty will find themselves in peril of the
+law.
+
+Surely what has been set down shows that whatever scientific reputation
+the writers in question possess, and it is undeniably great, it has not
+equipped them, one will not merely say with moral or religious ideas,
+but with an ordinary knowledge of human nature. It has not equipped them
+with any conception apparently of political possibilities; and it has
+left them without any of that saving salt, a sense of humour. Like
+Huxley, they have started out to give opinions without first having made
+themselves familiar with the subject on which they were to deliver
+judgment.
+
+It is perhaps little to be wondered at that the intense preoccupation
+which the study of science entails should tend to induce those whose
+attention is constantly fixed on Nature to imagine that from Nature can
+be drawn not only lessons of physical life but lessons also of conduct.
+Of course this is quite wrong; for Nature has no moral lesson to teach
+us. We are told to go to the ant--at least the sluggard is--but for
+what? To amend his sluggardliness. No one has ever suggested that we
+should go to Nature to learn to be humble, kindly, unselfish, tolerant,
+and Christian, in our dealings with others; and for this excellent
+reason, that none of these things can be learnt from Nature. Science is
+neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral; and, as we have seen a
+thousand times in this present war, its kindest gifts to man can be
+used, and are used, for his cruel destruction. In this war,
+pre-eminently amongst all wars, we have the application of pure natural
+principles unameliorated by the influences of Christianity, or of
+chivalry, Christianity's offspring. As Sir Robert Borden has summed it
+up, German kultur is an attempt "to impose upon us the law of the
+jungle."
+
+Natural Selection, some would have us believe, is the dominant law of
+living nature, and all would agree that it is an important law. Let us
+then, if we are to follow Nature, put it into practice. But Natural
+Selection means the Survival of the Fittest in the Struggle for Life. It
+consequently means the Extermination of the Less Fit, a little fact
+often left out of count. It means in three words "Might is Right," and
+was not that exactly the proposition by which we were confronted in this
+war? If Natural Selection be our only guide, let us sink hospital
+ships, destroy innocent villages and towns, exterminate our weaker
+opponents in any way that seems best to us. It was all summed up
+centuries ago by the author of the Book of Wisdom: "Let us oppress the
+poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey
+hairs of the aged. But let your strength be the law of justice: for that
+which is feeble is found to be nothing worth." That is Natural Selection
+in operation in human life when human beings have been stripped of all
+"mythical ideas of Sin:" not a pretty picture nor a condition of affairs
+under which we should like long to exist. Some of the other resemblances
+are less dreadful, but none the less instructive. Let us take the matter
+of Mimicry. There is a form of protective mimicry whereby the living
+thing is like unto its surroundings, and thus escapes its enemy. We find
+it in warfare in the use of khaki dress, in white overalls in snow-time,
+in other such expedients. But there is also a form of Aggressive Mimicry
+in which a deadly thing makes itself look like something innocent, as
+the wolf tried to look in "Little Red Riding Hood." "The Germans were
+beginning their attack on Haumont. Their front-line skirmishers, to
+throw us into confusion, had donned caps which were a faint imitation of
+our own, and also provided themselves with Red Cross brassards" (_The
+Battle of Verdun._ H. Dugard). Not to be tedious on this point, which
+really does not require to be laboured, let me finish with one quotation
+from a vivid series of war-pictures. Boyd Cable is writing of men in
+the trenches: "Civilised Man, in his latest art of war, has gone back to
+be taught one more simple lesson by the beast of the field and the birds
+of the air; the armed hosts are hushed and stilled by the passing
+air-machine, exactly as the finches and field-mice of hedgerow and ditch
+and field are frozen to stillness by the shadow of a hovering hawk, the
+beat of its passing wing."
+
+No; an existence passed under conditions of this kind and as the normal
+state of affairs is not an existence to be contemplated with equanimity.
+We are anxious that science and scientific teaching should be assisted
+in every possible way. But let us be quite clear that while science has
+much to teach us and we much to learn from her, there are things as to
+which she has no message to the world. The Minor Prophets of science are
+never tired of advising theologians to keep their hands off science. The
+Major Prophets are too busy to occupy themselves with such polemics. But
+the theologian is abundantly in his right in saying to the scientific
+writer "Hands off morals!" for with morality science has nothing to do.
+Let us at any rate avoid that form of kultur which consists in bending
+Natural History to the teaching of conduct, uncorrected by any Christian
+injunctions to soften its barbarities.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 30: Since these lines were written, this state of
+  affairs has come to an end and the first Fellow has been
+  elected for his purely scientific attainments, in the person of
+  the distinguished geologist, Professor Joly, F.R.S.]
+
+  [Footnote 31: It was the late distinguished Provost, Sir John
+  Mahaffy, at whose instance the change in the Fellowship system
+  was introduced.]
+
+  [Footnote 32: Conklyn, _Heredity and Environment in the
+  Development of Men_. Princeton University Press, 1915.]
+
+
+
+
+VI. HEREDITY AND "ARRANGEMENT"
+
+
+Some years ago, when I was delivering a lecture at the Cathedral Hall of
+Westminster, in the course of the questioning which took place at the
+termination of the discourse, which was on vitalism, I was asked by one
+who signed his paper, "So and So, Atheist," "What would you say if you
+saw a duck come out of a hen's egg?" I recognised at once the idea at
+the back of the question and appreciated the fact that it had been asked
+by one who, as some one has said, "called himself an advanced
+free-thinker, but was really a very ignorant and vulgar person who was
+suffering from a surfeit of the ideas of certain people cleverer than
+himself." But, as a full discussion of the matter would have taken at
+least as long as the lecture which I had just concluded, my reply was
+that before I attempted to explain it I would wait to see the duck come
+out of the hen's egg, since no man had as yet witnessed such an event. I
+do not know whether my atheistical questioner was satisfied or not, but
+I heard no more of him. But, after all, is it not a marvellous thing
+that a duck never does come out of a hen's egg? If everything happens by
+chance, as some would have us believe, why is it that a duck does not
+occasionally emerge from a hen's egg? Surely this is a _miraculum_, a
+thing to be wondered at, yet so common that it goes unnoticed, like many
+other wonderful things which are also matters of common everyday
+occurrence, such as the spinning of the earth on its own axis and its
+course round the sun and through the heavens.
+
+If we pursue this question further we shall begin to remember that
+creatures more nearly related to one another also "breed true." The hen
+and the duck are both birds, but they are not so nearly allied to one
+another as the lion and the tiger, both of which are _Felidae_, or cats.
+Yet no one ever expects that a tiger will be born of a lioness, or _vice
+versa_. Further, the pug and the greyhound are both of them dogs: the
+name _canis domesticus_ applies to both, and one would be distinguished
+from the other in a scientific list as "Var. (_i.e._ variety) 'pug,'" or
+"Var. 'greyhound.'" Yet one can imagine the surprise of a breeder if a
+greyhound was born in his carefully selected and guarded kennel of pugs.
+In a word, not only species, but varieties do tend to breed true; the
+child does resemble its parent or parents. No doubt the resemblance is
+not absolute: there is variation as well as inheritance. Sometimes the
+variation may be recognised as a feature possessed by a grandparent or
+even by some collateral relative such as an uncle or great-uncle;
+sometimes this may not be the case, though the non-recognition of the
+likeness does not in any way preclude the possibility that the
+peculiarity may have been also possessed by some other member of the
+family. But on the whole the offspring does closely resemble its
+parents; that is to say, not only the species and the variety but the
+individual "breeds true." "Look like dey are bleedzed to take atter der
+pa," as Uncle Remus said when he was explaining how the rabbit comes to
+have a bobtail. Moreover this resemblance is not merely in the great
+general features. Apart from monstrosities, the children of human beings
+are human beings; the children of white parents have white skins, those
+of black progenitors are black. Commonly, though not always by any
+means, the children of dark-haired parents are themselves dark-haired,
+and so on. But smaller features are also transmitted, and transmitted
+too for many generations; for example, the well-known case of the
+Hapsburg lip, visible in so many portraits of Spanish monarchs and their
+near relatives, and visible in life to-day. Again, there are families in
+which the inner part of one eyebrow has the hairs growing upwards
+instead of in the ordinary way, a feature which is handed on from one
+generation to another. Even more minute features than this have been
+known to be transmissible and transmitted, such as a tiny pit in the
+skin on the ear or on the face. In fact, there is hardly any feature, no
+matter how small, which may not become a hereditary possession.
+
+If in-and-in breeding occur, as it may do amongst human beings in a
+locality much removed from other places of habitation, it may even
+happen that what may be looked upon as a variety of the human race may
+arise, though when it arises it is always easy to wipe it out and
+restore things to the normal by the introduction of fresh blood, to use
+the misleading term commonly employed, where the Biblical word "seed"
+comes much nearer to the facts.
+
+Thus there is a well-authenticated case in France (in Brittany if I
+remember right) of a six-fingered race which existed for a number of
+generations in a very isolated place and was restored to
+five-fingeredness when an increase in the populousness of the district
+permitted a wider selection in the matter of marriages.
+
+And similarly, not long ago an account was published of an albino race
+somewhere in Canada which had acquired a special name.
+
+Perhaps it has been wiped out by this time by wider marriages, though
+these might be effected with greater difficulty by albinos than by
+six-fingered persons. At any rate no one can doubt that it might at any
+time be wiped out by such marriages, though even when apparently wiped
+out, sporadic cases might be expected to occur: what the breeders call
+"throws-back," when they see an animal which resembles some ancestor
+further back in the line of descent than its actual progenitors.
+Certainly the most remarkable instance of the reliance which we have
+come to feel respecting this matter of inheritance is that which was
+afforded by a recent case of disputed paternity interesting on both
+sides of the Atlantic, since the events in dispute occurred in America
+and the property and the dispute concerning it were in England.
+
+It was obviously a most difficult and disputable case, but the judge, a
+shrewd observer, noticed, when the putative father was in the box, a
+feature in his countenance which seemed closely to resemble what was to
+be seen in the child which he claimed to be his own. A careful
+examination of the parents and of the child was made by an eminent
+sculptor, accustomed to minute observation of small features of variety
+in those sitting to him as models.
+
+He reported and showed to the court that there were remarkable features
+in the head of the child which resembled, on the one hand an unusual
+configuration in the mother--or the woman who claimed to be the
+mother--and on the other a well-marked feature in her husband. And as a
+result the father and mother won their case, and were proclaimed the
+parents of the child because of the resemblance of these features; and,
+if we think for a moment, we shall see, because also of the reliance
+which the human race has come to place in the fidelity of inheritance,
+of its perfect certainty, so to speak, that a duck will not come out of
+a hen's egg, and the fact of this reliance on a generally received truth
+remains, whatever may be said as to the legal aspect of such evidence.
+
+Inheritance is a fact recognised by everybody, and the only reason why
+we refuse to wonder at it is because, like other wonderful yet everyday
+facts, such as the growth of a great tree from a tiny seed, it _is_ so
+everyday that we have ceased to wonder at it. It is there: we know that.
+But have we any kind of idea how it comes about? The duck does not, as a
+matter of common experience, come out of a hen's egg. Why does it come
+out of a duck's egg? Why doesn't it come out, if only rarely, from a
+hen's egg? In other words, do we know what it is that explains
+inheritance or how it is that there is such a thing as inheritance?
+Well, candour obliges me to say that we do not. In spite of all the work
+which has been expended upon this question we are totally ignorant of
+the mechanism of heredity. Nevertheless it will be instructive to glance
+at the theories which have been put forward to explain this matter.
+
+All living things spring from a small germ, and in the vast majority of
+cases this germ is the product in part of the male and in part of the
+female parent. It is therefore natural that we should in the first place
+turn our attention to this germ and ask ourselves whether there is
+anything in its construction which will give us the key of the mystery.
+There is not, at least there is nothing definite as shown by our most
+powerful microscopes. To be sure there is a remarkable substance, called
+chromatin because of its capacity for taking up certain dyes, which
+evidently plays some profoundly important part in the processes of
+development. We may suspect that this is the thing which carries the
+physical characteristics from one generation to another, but we cannot
+prove it; and though some authorities think that it is, others deny it.
+Even if it be, it can hardly be supposed that microscopic research will
+ever be able to establish the fact, and that for reasons which must now
+be explained.
+
+Let us suppose that we visit a vast botanic garden, and in the seed-time
+of each of the plants therein contained select from each plant a single
+ripe seed. It is clear that, if we take home that collection of seeds,
+we shall have in them a miniature picture of the garden from which they
+were culled, or at least we shall be in possession of the potentiality
+of such a garden, for, if we sow these seeds and have the good fortune
+to see them all develop, take root and grow, we shall actually possess a
+replica of the garden from which they came. Not exactly, it may be
+urged, for the distribution or arrangement of the seeds must have been
+carefully looked to, if the gardens are to resemble each other otherwise
+than in the mere possession of identical plants. I admit the truth of
+this, but cannot for the moment discuss it. At any rate we should have
+the same plants in both gardens.
+
+On this analogy, many have suggested that every organ in the body--we
+must go further, and say that every marked feature in every organ in the
+body--is represented in the germ by a seed which can grow, under
+favourable circumstances, into just such another organ or feature of an
+organ. This was the theory put forward by Darwin under the name of
+"pangenesis," and by others under other titles with which it is
+unnecessary to burden these pages. All these theories have been summed
+together under the name "micromeristic," that is small-fragmented, or
+again, "particulate," since they all postulate the existence in the germ
+of innumerable small fragments--seeds--which are capable of growing into
+complete plants or organs under favourable circumstances. Again, this,
+even if true, does not by any means exhaust the matter, for it does not
+explain why the seed of the eye implants itself and grows in the right
+place in the head instead of making a home for itself, let us say, in
+the sole of the foot. But again we must pass over that matter.
+
+There is nothing inherently impossible in this theory; indeed, if we
+allow that the transmission of inheritable characteristics is purely
+material, and it may be, there is only one other conceivable way in
+which it can occur. It is true that the seeds must be almost
+innumerable, but the germ, though small, is capable of accommodating an
+almost innumerable number of independent factors, if the prevalent views
+as to the constitution of matter are to be believed. And, as it is quite
+inconceivable that we can ever have microscopes which could detect such
+minute objects as the ultimate bricks of which the atom--no, not even
+the atoms themselves which compose the germ--consists, it is impossible
+that we should be able to say that the seed-theory is untrue. Even if we
+could see these ultimate constituents it is in the last degree unlikely
+that they would have any resemblance to the things which are, on this
+theory to grow from them, any more than the acorn resembles the oak
+which is to spring from it.
+
+But observe! the germ on this view must contain not only seeds from the
+immediate parents but from many, perhaps all, of the older generations
+of the family, otherwise how are we to account for the appearance of
+ancestral peculiarities which the father and mother do not show?
+Moreover, since very minute things, like the inner angle of the eyebrow,
+may independently vary, there must be an enormous number of seeds apart
+altogether from the considerations alluded to in the last paragraph. And
+many authorities who have closely considered the question have come to
+the conclusion that the complexities introduced would be so great that
+it is impossible to believe in any micromeristic theory.
+
+Then, of course, we must look out for some other explanation, and some
+have suggested that it is to be found in memory--the memory of the germ
+of what it was once part and the anticipation of what it may once more
+be. This again is an explanation not susceptible of proof along the
+lines of a chemical experiment, but not necessarily, therefore, untrue.
+Of course there are two ideas as to memory. If we are pure materialists
+and imagine every memory in our possession as something stamped, in some
+wholly incomprehensible manner, on some cell of our brain and looked at
+there, by some wholly inconceivable agency, when we sit down to think of
+past days, then we must look on the germ, under the "mnemic" or memory
+theory as consisting of fragments each of them impressed with the
+"memory" of some particular organ or feature of the body, and lo! we
+find ourselves back again in micromerism. If we are to take a
+non-materialistic view of memory we are plunged into a metaphysical
+discussion which cannot here be pursued. A third explanation, which by
+the way explains nothing, is that the whole matter is one of
+"arrangement," to which we shall return at the close of this paper.
+
+The mechanism of inheritance must either be physical[33] or it must be
+non-physical; that is, immaterial. This is what emerges from our
+discussion, and so far as science goes to-day it must be admitted that
+neither of these explanations can be said to be accepted generally by
+men of science or proved--perhaps even capable of proof--by scientific
+methods. If we know little or nothing about the mechanism of
+inheritance, can we and do we know anything about the laws under which
+it works, or has it any laws? Or are its operations a mere
+chance-medley? It is hardly necessary to ask the latter question, for
+chance-medley could not lead to regular operations--operations so
+regular that a court of law may act upon their evidence. Yes: we answer
+to the first question very lightly but without perhaps always thinking
+what that affirmative answer implies, a point to be considered in a
+moment. It may at once be said that we do now know a good deal about
+the laws under which inheritance works itself out, and that knowledge,
+as most people are now aware, is due to the quiet and for a time
+forgotten labours of Johann Gregor Mendel, once Abbot of the Augustinian
+Abbey of Bruenn, a prelate of that Church which loud-voiced ignoramuses
+are never tired of proclaiming to have been from the beginning even down
+to the present day the impassioned and deadly enemy of all scientific
+progress. Mendel saw that former workers at inheritance had been
+directing their attention to the _tout ensemble_ of an individual or
+natural object; his idea was analytical in its nature, for he directed
+his attention to individual characteristics, such as stature or colour,
+or the like. And having thus directed his attention and confined his
+labours mainly to plants, since the study of generations of most animals
+is too lengthy a process for one man to carry out, he did in fact
+discover that there are very definite laws, capable even of numerical
+statement, under which inheritance acts. There is no need to explain or
+discuss them here: suffice it to say that there _are_ such laws,[34] as
+is now admitted by an overwhelming majority of the biologists of to-day.
+Mendel's facts were hidden in a somewhat obscure journal; they lay
+dormant, much to his annoyance, during his lifetime. Years after his
+death his papers were unearthed, and his discoveries have been
+proclaimed as being as fundamental to biology as those of Newton and
+Dalton to other sciences.
+
+There are, then, laws. That means one of two things: either that these
+laws arose by chance-medley, or that some one enacted them. It seems
+impossible, when one surveys the orderly operations of Nature, among
+which are those conducted under the laws known by the name of their
+discoverer, Mendel--it seems wholly impossible that these operations
+arose by chance-medley. To me, at any rate, any such explanation is
+wholly unthinkable. But if it be an impossible explanation, as I and
+many thousands, not to say millions, of other persons believe, then
+there is no other way out of it than that these operations must have
+been planned by some one; in other words, that there must have been a
+Creator and Deviser of the world.
+
+People hide from this explanation, and one of the favourite sandbanks in
+which this particular kind of human ostrich plunges its head is
+"Nature." "Nature does this," and "Nature does that," forgetting
+entirely the fact that "Nature" is a mere personification and means
+either chance-medley or a Creator, according to the old dilemma. There
+is a very curious example of this inability or unwillingness to
+admit--perhaps even to understand--the force of this argument exhibited
+by those to whom one would suppose that it would come home with
+overpowering force: I mean, of course, the Mendelians.
+
+The most learned of these, and one of the most open-minded of men,
+hints in one place that though he does not think it necessary himself to
+believe it, yet it might at least be suggested that, if in a certain
+organism we find things so placed that a certain combination is bound to
+emerge in a certain generation, such a state of affairs might have been
+prearranged. Now, if it was prearranged, the awful fact emerges that
+there must have been an arranger; in other words, a creative power. This
+explanation is taboo in certain circles. But one may reasonably ask,
+"What then?" Is it really suggested that these orderly sets of
+occurrences may occur not once or twice only but thousands and thousands
+of times, and this may all happen by chance? A very distant acquaintance
+with the mathematics of probability will show that this is a wholly
+untenable theory. We are generally answered by some purely verbal
+explanation, like the personification of "Nature" already alluded to.
+
+Thus, in a recent discussion on inheritance in a Presidential Address to
+the British Association, to which I have already alluded, the writer
+with whose explanation I have just been dealing states that he thinks it
+"unlikely" that the factors of inheritance are "in any simple or literal
+sense material particles," and proceeds thus: "I suspect rather that
+their properties depend on some phenomenon of arrangement." Now, in the
+first place, this is no explanation at all, for the mechanism of
+inheritance must be either material or immaterial. If there is a
+phenomenon of "arrangement" there must be something to be "arranged,"
+and this something can hardly be other than material if it is to be
+"arranged" at all. But let that pass. What is far more important is to
+remember that if a thing is to be "arranged" there must be somebody to
+"arrange" it, for chance-medley cannot "arrange" anything in an orderly
+manner; or if it could do so once, cannot be supposed capable of doing
+it a second time in a precisely similar manner, not to say capable of
+doing it countless thousands of times.
+
+If we go into a great museum our first idea, perhaps our last, concerns
+the arrangement found therein. But it may safely be said that no sane
+person ever entertained that idea without being perfectly aware that the
+arrangement was made by human hands, controlled, in the last resort, by
+the brain of the curator of the museum. Now, in a sense, the living body
+is a museum containing specimens of different kinds of cells. There are
+brain-cells, liver-cells, bone-cells, scores of different varieties of
+cells, and all of them, so to speak, are arranged in their appropriate
+cases.
+
+If we go to the brain-case we can search it through and through without
+finding a liver-cell, any more than we should find a typical brain-cell
+embedded in the marrow of one of the bones. The different specimens all
+occupy their appropriate positions. How did they get there? The future
+animal, like animals of all kinds, including man, commences as a single
+cell. All save a few interesting but at present negligible cases are
+composed of elements drawn from male and female parents. This cell
+divides up into a multitude of others. At first these are to all
+appearances identical, but later they begin to differentiate, at first
+into three classes and afterwards into the multitude of different cells
+of which the body is composed. Further, these groups of cells become
+aggregated in appropriate groups, cells of one kind uniting with cells
+of the same kind and with no others. Here we have to do with
+arrangement, consummately skilful arrangement, an arrangement which
+practically never fails, for, leaving aside the case of monstrosity, a
+consideration of which would detain us too long, not merely are the
+various cells all placed in their proper positions, as we have seen, but
+their aggregation, the individual, is so formed as to belong to the
+proper compartment of that large museum, the world--the same compartment
+as that occupied by his progenitors. Neither the particulate nor the
+chemical theories help us here. The mnemic would, but it has its initial
+and insuperable difficulty, pointed out in another article in this
+volume, that, as you must have an experience before you can remember it,
+it in no way accounts for the first operation of arrangement. As to the
+material explanations, particulate or chemical, they amount to something
+like this: you have half a cart-load of bricks from one yard and half a
+cart-load from another, and when the bricks are dumped down in an
+appropriate place they form a little house, just like those occupied by
+the managers of the brickyards. So they may, but no one in his sense
+supposes that they will thus arrange themselves of their own power.
+Some one must arrange them. Who arranges the tiny bricks of which the
+animal body consists, or what arranges them? To revert to our previous
+example of the garden; suppose that we bring back from that which we
+desire to copy a bag of seeds representing all the plants which it
+contains. We have a plot of land of the same size as our example; we dig
+it and we dung it and then we scatter our seeds perfectly haphazard over
+its surface. What are the odds as to their coming up in an exactly
+similar pattern to those in the other garden. Mathematicians, I suppose,
+could calculate the probabilities, but they must be infinitesimally
+small. Yet in the case of the animal the pattern is always observed.
+
+It is quite useless for any one, however eminent an authority he may be,
+to dismiss the matter by saying "It is a phenomenon of arrangement," for
+that begs the whole question. A Martian visitor taken to Westminster
+Abbey and told that its construction was a "phenomenon of arrangement"
+might be expected to turn a scornful eye upon his cicerone and reply,
+"Any fool can see that, but who arranged it?"
+
+Hence, though wild horses would not drag such an admission from many, we
+are irresistibly compelled to adopt the theory of a Creator and a
+Maintainer also of nature and its operations--so-called--if we are to
+escape from the absurdities involved in any other explanation. Thus
+there are very important and fundamental matters to be deduced from the
+very little which we know about inheritance, just as there are from a
+hundred and one other lines of consideration related to this world and
+its contents. We do not know very much--it may fairly be said we _know_
+nothing as to the vehicle of inheritance. We know a little, but it is
+still a very little even in comparison with what we may yet come to know
+as the result of careful and long-continued experiment, about the laws
+of inheritance. What we do learn from our knowledge, such as it is, is
+the fact that we can give no intelligent or intelligible explanation of
+the facts brought before us except on the hypothesis of a Creator and
+Maintainer of all things.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 33: A third explanation, that the mechanism of
+  inheritance is of a chemical character, is now being put
+  forward, and some mention of this view, which is by no means
+  one of general acceptance, will be found in another article in
+  this volume.]
+
+  [Footnote 34: An account of them will be found in _A Century of
+  Scientific Thought_, by the present writer, published by
+  Messrs. Burns & Oates.]
+
+
+
+VII. "SPECIAL CREATION"
+
+
+Professor Scott, of Princeton, has recently given to the public in his
+Westbrook Lectures[35] an exceedingly impartial, convincing, and lucid
+statement of the evidence for the theory of evolution or transformism.
+On one point of terminology a few observations may not be amiss, since
+there is a certain amount of confusion still existing in the minds of
+many persons which can be and ought to be cleared up. Throughout his
+book Professor Scott contrasts evolution with what he calls "special
+creation." In so doing he is evidently in no way anxious to deny the
+fact that there is a Creator, and that evolution may fairly be regarded
+as His method of creation. In one passage he expressly states that
+"acceptance of the theory of evolution by no means excludes belief in a
+creative plan."
+
+And again, when dealing with the palaeontological evidence in favour of
+evolution, he points out that Cuvier and Agassiz, examining it as it was
+known in their day, interpreted the facts as the carrying out of a
+systematic creative plan, an interpretation which the author claims "is
+not at all invalidated by the acceptance of the evolutionary theory." He
+is not, we need hardly say, in any way singular in taking up this
+attitude, since it was held by Darwin, by Wallace, by Huxley, and by
+other sturdy defenders of the doctrine of evolution.
+
+Yet, just as at the time that Darwin's views were first made public,
+many thought that they were subversive of Christianity, so, even now,
+some whose acquaintance with the problem and its history is of a
+superficial character, are inclined when they see the word creation,
+even with the qualifying adjective "special" prefixed to it, used in
+contradistinction to evolution, to imagine that the theory of creation,
+and of course of a Creator, must fall to the ground if evolution should
+be proved to be the true explanation of living things and their
+diversities.
+
+It is more than a little difficult for us, living at the present day, to
+understand this curious frame of mind; yet it certainly existed, and
+existed where it might least have been expected to exist. Nor is it
+quite extinct to-day, though it only lingers in the less instructed
+class of persons. The misconception arose from a confusion between the
+fact and the method of creation. As to the former, no Catholic, no
+Christian, no theist has any kind of doubt; indeed there are those who
+could not be classified under any of those categories who still would be
+prepared to admit that there must be a First Cause as the explanation
+of the universe. Some of them, whose reasoning is a little difficult to
+follow, seem to be content with an immanent, blind god, a mere
+mainspring to the clock, making it move, no doubt, but otherwise
+powerless. If we neglect--in a mathematical sense--those who adopt the
+agnostic attitude; content themselves with the formula _ignoramus et
+ignorabimus_ of Du Bois Reymond, and confine their investigations to the
+machine as a going machine without inquiring how it came to be a machine
+or what set it to work, we shall, I think, find that most people who
+have really thought out the question admit that the only reasonable
+explanation of things as they are, is the postulation of a Free First
+Cause; in other words, an Omnipotent Creator of the universe. Such, of
+course, is the teaching of the Scriptures and of the Church, and it must
+be admitted that neither of them carries us very much further in this
+matter. In fact, whilst both are perfectly clear and definite about the
+fact of creation, neither of them has much to say about the method. Yet,
+as all admit, evolution concerns only the method and tells us absolutely
+nothing about the cause.
+
+Being omnipotent, it is obvious that its Maker might have created the
+universe in any way which seemed good to Him--for example, all at once
+out of nothing just as it stands at this moment. Such a thing would not
+be impossible to Omnipotence; and, as we know, Fallopius, suddenly
+confronted by the problems of fossils in the sixteenth century, did
+suggest that they were created just as they were, and that they had
+never been anything else. So did Philip Gosse some two and a half
+centuries later.
+
+There is nothing more sure than that the world was not created just as
+it is. Reason and Scripture both teach us that, and geology makes it
+quite clear that the appearance of living things upon the earth has been
+successive; that groups of living things, like the giant saurians, which
+were once the dominant zoological objects, had their day and have gone,
+as we may suppose, for ever. A few very lowly forms, like the
+lamp-shells, have persisted almost throughout the history of life on the
+earth, but on the whole the picture which we see is one of appearances,
+culminations, and disappearances of successive races of living things.
+There was a time when Trilobites, crustaceans whose nearest living
+representatives are the King-Crabs, first became features of the fauna
+of the earth. Then they increased to such an extent as to become the
+most prominent feature. Then they declined in importance, disappeared,
+and for uncounted ages have existed only as fossils. Thus we conclude
+that the creation of species was a progressive affair, just as the
+creation of individuals is a successive affair, for every living thing,
+coming as it does into existence by the power of the Creator, is His
+creation and in a very real sense a special creation. Now we know very
+well how living things come into existence to-day; can we form any idea
+as to how they originated in the beginning? Milton, in his crude
+description in _Paradise Lost_, pictured living things as gradually
+rising out of and extricating themselves from the soil.
+
+    "The grassy clods now calved, now half appeared
+    The tawny lion, pawing to get free
+    His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
+    And rampant shakes his brindled mane; the ounce,
+    The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole
+    Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw
+    In hillocks: the swift stag from underground
+    Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould
+    Behemoth, biggest born of earth, up heaved
+    His vastness."
+
+In this description Milton probably represented the ideas of his day--a
+day penetrated with literal interpretation of the Scripture, though it
+is well to recall to our minds the fact that not one word or idea of the
+above is contained in the Bible. The only suggestion is that the body of
+Adam was fashioned from the "slime of the earth," the precise meaning of
+which phrase has never been defined by the Church.
+
+Again, we have to say that the Miltonic scheme is not impossible, any
+more than any other scheme is impossible, but we may further say that it
+is more than improbable, and with every reverence we may add that to us
+it does not seem to be specially consonant with the greatness and wisdom
+of God. There remains the derivative form of creation, compendiously
+styled evolution. That this also is a possible method of creation no one
+will deny, and it has been discussed as such by many of the greatest
+thinkers in the history of the Church. We can consider it, therefore,
+from the point of fact or of knowledge as we now possess it, and we can
+do so without imagining that, in so doing, we are contemplating a method
+which is anything else but the carrying out of a creative plan, existing
+perfect and complete and from all eternity in the mind of the Being
+Whose conception it was and by whose _fiat_ it came to pass. Moreover,
+each form produced is a special creation, since it was specially
+designed to be as it is and to appear when it did, just as the
+clockmaker intends his clock to strike twelve at noon, though he can
+hardly be said to make it strike at that moment. Hence to place special
+creation in antagonism to evolution is really to use an ambiguous
+phraseology. No doubt it is not easy to find the proper phraseology.
+Some have employed the terms "immediate" and "mediate," to which also a
+certain amount of ambiguity is attached. Perhaps "direct" and
+"derivative" might convey more accurate ideas; but whatever terminology
+we adopt, we are still safe in saying that whether God makes things or
+makes them make themselves He is creating them and specially creating
+them.
+
+This is not the place to enter into any elaborate discussion as to the
+truth of the theory of evolution. Few will be found to deny the
+statement that it is a theory which _does_ explain Nature as we see it
+and as we learn its history in the past, but that does not necessarily
+prove that it is true. St. Thomas Aquinas, dealing with the movements of
+the planets, makes a very important statement when he tells us, in so
+many words, that, though the hypothesis with which he is dealing would
+explain the appearances which he was seeking to explain, that does not
+prove that it is the true explanation, since the real answer to the
+riddle may be one then unknown to him. There are, however, one or two
+points it may be useful to consider before we leave the question.
+
+That evolution may occur within a class seems to be quite certain. The
+case of the Porto Santo rabbits, one of many cited by Darwin or brought
+to knowledge since his time, will make clear what is meant. Porto Santo
+is a small island, not far from Madeira, on which a Portuguese
+navigator, named Zarco, let loose, somewhere about the year 1420, a doe
+and a recently born litter of rabbits, which we may feel quite sure
+belonged to one of those domestic breeds which have all been derived
+from the wild rabbit of Europe known to zoologists as _Lepus Cuniculus_.
+The island was a favourable spot for the rabbits, for there do not
+appear to have been any carnivorous beasts or birds to harry them, nor
+were there other land mammals competing with them for food; and, as a
+result, we are told that they had so far increased and multiplied in
+forty years as to be described as "innumerable." In four and a half
+centuries these rabbits had become so different from any European
+rabbits that Haeckel described them as a species apart, and named it
+_Lepus Huxlei_. This rabbit is much smaller than the European form,
+being described as more like a large rat than a rabbit. Its colour is
+very different from its European relatives; it has curious nocturnal
+habits; it is exceedingly wild and untamable. Most remarkable of all,
+and most conclusive as to specific difference, Mr. Bartlett, the highly
+skilled head keeper of the London Zoological Gardens, utterly failed to
+induce the two males which were brought over to those gardens to
+associate with or to breed with the females of various other breeds of
+rabbits which were repeatedly placed with them. If the history of these
+Porto Santo rabbits had been unknown to us, instead of being a matter as
+to which there can be no doubt, every naturalist would at once have
+accepted them as a separate species. We need not hesitate, it appears,
+to do so and to admit that it is a new species which has been produced
+within historic times and under conditions with which we are fully
+acquainted. It may, however, be argued, and quite fairly argued, that
+such a process of evolution, though definitely proved, is a very
+different thing from such an evolution as would permit of a common
+ancestry for animals so far apart, for example, as a whale and a rabbit,
+or perhaps even nearer in relationship, as between a lion and a seal. To
+discuss this further would require a dissertation on the highly involved
+question of species and varieties, and that is not now to be attempted.
+What, however, may be said is that the difficulties presented by what is
+called phylogeny--that is, the relationships of different classes to one
+another--are so great as to have led more than one man of science to
+proclaim his belief that evolution has been poly--and not
+mono--phyletic. Such is the view which has been enunciated by Father
+Wasmann, S.J., whose authority on a point of this kind is paramount. It
+has also been upheld by Professor Bateson, a man widely separated from
+the Jesuit in all but attachment to science. Professor Bateson summed up
+his belief in the text which he placed on the title-page of his first
+great work on _Variation_: the text which proclaims that there is a
+flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes.
+
+Darwin remained to the end of his life undecided between the two views,
+for he allowed his original statement as to life having been breathed
+into one or more forms by the Creator, to pass from edition to edition
+of the _Origin of Species_. If the polyphyletic theory be adopted, it
+must be said that the position of the materialist is made far more
+difficult than it is at present. Let us see what it means. On the
+materialistic hypothesis, and the same may be said of the pantheistic or
+any other hypothesis not theistic in nature, a certain cell came by
+chance to acquire the attributes of life. From this descended plants and
+animals of all kinds in divergent series till the edifice was crowned by
+man. I have elsewhere endeavoured to point out all that is involved in
+this assumption, which, it must be confessed, is a very large mouthful
+to swallow.
+
+Let us now consider what the polyphyletic hypothesis involves. According
+to this view one cell accidentally developed the attributes of vegetable
+life; a further accident leads another cell to initiate the line of
+invertebrates; another that of fishes, let us say; another of mammals:
+the number varying according to the views of the theorist on phylogeny.
+Let us not forget that the cell or cells which accidentally acquired the
+attributes of life, had accidentally to shape themselves from dead
+materials into something of a character wholly unknown in the inorganic
+world. If one seriously considers the matter it is--so it seems to
+me--utterly impossible to subscribe to the accidental theory of which
+the immanent god--the blind god of Bergson--is a mere variant. One must
+agree with the late Lord Kelvin that "science positively affirms
+creative power ... which (she) compels us to accept as an article of
+belief." But what are we to say with regard to the series of repeated
+accidents which the polyphyletic hypothesis would seem to demand? Is it
+really possible that any man could bring himself to place credence in
+such a marvellous series of occurrences? Monophyletic or polyphyletic
+evolution, whichever, if either, it may have been, presents no
+difficulty on the creation hypothesis.
+
+The Divine plan might have embraced either method. It is not merely
+revelation but ordinary reason which shows us that the wonderful things
+which we know, not to speak of the far more wonderful things at which we
+can only guess, cannot possibly be explained on any other hypothesis
+than that of a Free First Cause--a Creator.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 35: _The Theory of Evolution._ By William Berryman Scott.
+  New York: The Macmillan Co.]
+
+
+
+
+VIII. CATHOLIC WRITERS AND SPONTANEOUS GENERATION
+
+
+The names of great Catholic men of science, laymen like Pasteur and
+Mueller, or ecclesiastics like Stensen and Mendel, are familiar to all
+educated persons. But even educated persons, or at least a great
+majority of them, are quite ignorant of the goodly band of workers in
+science who were devout children of the Church. Nothing perhaps more
+fully exemplifies this than the history of the controversy respecting
+the subject whose name is set down as the title of this paper. For
+centuries a controversy raged at intervals around the question of
+spontaneous generation. Did living things originate, not merely in the
+past but every day, from non-living matter? When we consider such things
+as the once mysterious appearance of maggots in meat it is not wonderful
+that in the days before the microscope the answer was in the
+affirmative.
+
+To-day the question may be considered almost closed. True, the negative
+proposition cannot be proved, hence it is impossible to say that
+spontaneous generation does not take place. However, the scientific
+world is at one in the belief that so far all attempts to prove it have
+failed utterly.
+
+St. Thomas Aquinas had a celebrated and sometimes misunderstood
+controversy with Avicenna, a very famous Arabian philosopher. It was a
+philosophical, but not strictly scientific, controversy, for both
+persons accepted or assumed the existence of spontaneous generation.
+Avicenna claimed that it took place by the powers of Nature alone,
+whilst St. Thomas adopted the attitude which we should adopt to-day,
+were spontaneous generation shown to be a fact, namely, that if Nature
+possessed this power, it was because the Creator had willed it so.
+
+We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668, when
+Francesco Redi (1626-1697) published his book on the generation of
+insects and showed that meat protected from flies by wire gauze or
+parchment did not develop maggots, whilst meat left unprotected did.
+From this and from other experiments he was led to formulate the theory
+that in all cases of apparent production of life from dead matter the
+real explanation was that living germs from outside had been introduced
+into it. For a long time this view held the field. Redi was, as his name
+indicates, an Italian, an inhabitant of Aretino, a poet as well as a
+physician and scientific worker. He was physician to two of the Grand
+Dukes of Tuscany and an academician of the celebrated _Accademia della
+Crusca_. Those works which I have been able to consult on the subject
+say nothing about his religion, but there can scarcely be any doubt
+that he was a Catholic. At any rate there is no doubt whatever as to the
+other persons now to be mentioned in connection with the controversy,
+which again became active about a century after Redi had published his
+book. The antagonists on this occasion were both of them Catholic
+priests, and both of them deserve some brief notice.
+
+John Turberville Needham (1713-1781) was born in London and belonged on
+both sides to old Catholic families. He was educated at Douay and
+ordained priest at Cambray in 1738. After teaching in that place for
+some time he journeyed to England and became head-master of the once
+celebrated school for Catholic boys at Twyford, near Winchester. From
+there he went for a short time to Lisbon as professor of philosophy in
+the English College. Subsequently he travelled with various Peers making
+"the grand tour." After that he retired to Paris, where he was elected a
+member of the _Academie des Sciences_. He was the first director of the
+Imperial Academy in Brussels; a canon, first of Dendermonde and
+afterward of Soignies. He died in Brussels and was buried in the Abbey
+of Condenberg. Needham was a man of really great scientific attainments,
+and perhaps nothing proves the estimation in which he was held more than
+the fact that in 1746 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,
+being the first Catholic priest to become a member of that distinguished
+body. When one remembers the attitude at that time, and much later, of
+Englishmen towards Catholics it is clear that Needham's claims to
+distinction must have been more than ordinarily great. His clear, firm
+signature is still to be seen in the charter-book of the society, and it
+is interesting to note that he signs his name "Turberville Needham."
+Needham did not confine his attention to science, for he was an ardent
+antiquary, and in 1761 was elected a Fellow of that other ancient and
+exclusive body, the Society of Antiquaries of London. In this connection
+it may be mentioned that Needham published, in 1761, a book which caused
+a great sensation, for he endeavoured to show that he could translate an
+Egyptian inscription by means of Chinese characters; in other words,
+that the forms of writing were germane to one another. He was shown to
+be quite wrong by some of the learned Jesuits of the day, who, with the
+assistance of Chinese men of letters, proved that the resemblances to
+which Needham had called attention were merely superficial.
+
+But our interest now is in his controversy with Spallanzani. Lazaro
+Spallanzani (1729-1799) was born at Scandiano in Modena and educated at
+the Jesuit College at Reggio di Modena. There was some question as to
+his entering the Society; he did not do so, however, but repaired to the
+University of Bologna, where his kinswoman, Laura Bassi, was then
+professor of physics. He became a priest, but devoted his life to
+teaching and experimenting. He must have been something of what we in
+Ireland used to call a "polymath," for he professed at one time or
+another, in various universities, logic, metaphysics, Greek, and
+finally natural history. He first explained the physics of what children
+call "ducks and drakes" made by flat pebbles on water; laid the
+foundations of meteorology and vulcanology, and is perhaps best of all
+known in connection with what is termed "regeneration" in the earthworm
+and above all in the salamander. His experiments still hold the field in
+a region of study which has vastly extended itself in recent years,
+becoming of prime importance in the vitalistic controversy.
+
+In the dispute, however, with which we are concerned Needham and
+Spallanzani defended opposite positions. The former, as the result of
+his observations, asserted that, in spite of the boiling and sealing up
+of organic fluids, life did appear in them. His opponent claimed that
+Needham's experiments had not been sufficiently precise. The latter had
+enclosed his fluids in bottles fitted with ordinary corks, covered with
+mastic varnish, whilst Spallanzani, employing flasks with long necks
+which he could and did seal by heat when the contents were boiling,
+showed that in that case no life was produced. He declared, and
+correctly too, as we now know, that Needham's methods did permit of the
+introduction of something from without. The controversy went to sleep
+again until the discovery of oxygen by Priestley in 1774. When it had
+been shown that oxygen was essential to the existence of all forms of
+life, the question arose as to whether the boiling of the organic fluids
+in the earlier experiments had not expelled all the oxygen and thus
+prevented the existence and development of any life.
+
+In the further experiments which this query gave rise to, we meet with
+another illustrious Catholic name, that of Theodor Schwann, better known
+as the originator of that fundamental piece of scientific knowledge, the
+cell-theory. Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) was born at Neuss and educated
+by the Jesuits, first at Cologne, afterward at Bonn. After studying at
+the Universities of Wuerzburg and Berlin he became professor in the
+Catholic University of Louvain, where his name was one of the principal
+glories of this now wrecked seat of learning. Thence he went as
+professor to Liege, where he died. He was, says his biography in the
+_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, "of a peculiarly gentle and amiable character
+and remained a devout Catholic throughout his life." Schwann's
+experiments tended to show that the introduction of air--of course
+containing oxygen--did not lead to the production of life, if the air
+had first been thoroughly sterilised. It was thought that this question
+had been finally answered, when it was reopened by Pouchet, in 1859. He
+was a Frenchman, the director of the Natural History Museum of Rouen,
+but as to his religious views I have no information. It is quite
+probable, however, that he was a Catholic. Pouchet and all on his side
+were finally--so far as there can be finality in such a matter--disposed
+of by Pasteur, of whose distinction as a man of science and devoutness
+as a Catholic nothing need be said.
+
+It is quite unnecessary to devote any consideration here to the
+character of Pasteur's experiments, for they have become a matter of
+common knowledge to all educated persons. Let it suffice to say that
+they were on the lines first laid down by Redi and greatly elaborated by
+Spallanzani, namely the exclusion from the fluids or other substances
+under examination of all possible contamination by minute organisms in
+the air. Spallanzani knew nothing of these organisms; they were not
+discovered until many years after his death. But he surmised that there
+was something which brought corruption into the fluids; he excluded that
+something, with the result that the fluids remained untainted. From our
+point of view, however, there are several things to be learnt. In the
+first place quite a number of ignorant persons have thought that the
+discovery of spontaneous generation would upset religious dogmata. That
+of course is quite absurd. From what has been said above it will be seen
+that St. Thomas Aquinas--in common with all the men of learning of his
+day--fully believed in it, as did Needham, another ecclesiastic as to
+whose orthodoxy there is no doubt. Further, the entire controversy is a
+complete confutation of the false allegation that between Catholicism
+and science there is a great gulf set. There have been few longer and
+more remarkable controversies in the history of science, and scarce any
+other--if indeed any other--which has such important bearings upon
+health and industry than that which relates to bio- or abio-genesis. It
+is significant to find that the names of so many of the protagonists in
+this controversy were those of men who were also convinced adherents of
+the Catholic Church.
+
+
+
+
+IX. A THEORY OF LIFE[36]
+
+
+Of the making of books on the question of Vitalism there would seem to
+be no end; and, following upon quite a number of others comes this
+handsome, well-illustrated, intensely interesting book, by one whose
+writings are always worth study. It purports to deal with the Origin and
+Evolution of Life; but, as to the first, it leaves us in no way advanced
+towards any real explanation of that problem on materialistic lines. As
+to the second, though there is a vast amount of valuable information,
+often illuminating and suggestive, again we confess that we fail to
+discover any real philosophy of that process of evolution which the
+author postulates. These propositions we must now proceed to justify. We
+can consider them from the most rigidly scientific standpoint, since, if
+every word or almost every word in the book were proved truth, it would
+not make the slightest difference to Catholic Philosophy, nor, indeed,
+to Theistic teachings, since in the imperishable words of Paley: "There
+may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind
+another, between what we observe of nature and the Deity; but there
+must be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what
+we see; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an intelligent
+designing Author."
+
+The scientific writer has to remember that whilst he may explain many
+things, his work is a torso unless and until he has either accepted the
+Creator as the first Cause, which he is too often disinclined to do, or
+has supplied an equally satisfactory explanation, which he is
+permanently unable to do. On the other hand, at least some defenders of
+Theism in the past might well have borne in mind that, whilst we are
+assured of the fact of Creation, we know absolutely nothing of its
+mechanism save that it came about by the command of God. There is
+nothing in which clear thinking and clear writing are more necessary
+than in discussions of this kind; and too many of them are vitiated by
+an obvious lack of philosophical training on the part of the
+participants. Even in this carefully written book there are instances of
+this kind of thing to which we must allude before considering its main
+arguments.
+
+"We know, for example, that there has existed a more or less complete
+chain of beings from monad to man, that the one-toed horse had a
+four-toed ancestor, that man has descended from an unknown ape-like form
+somewhere in the Tertiary." "We _know_"--that is exactly the opposite of
+the truth. We _know_ a thing when it is susceptible of proof according
+to the rigid rules of formal logic; when, to doubt it, would be to give
+rise to a suspicion as to our sanity; then we _know_ a thing, but not
+until then. Now, as to the sentence quoted, we may allow the first part
+to pass unchallenged with some possible demur at the use of the word
+"chain." The second so-called piece of knowledge was doubted by no less
+an authority than the late Adam Sedgwick. The third assertion plainly
+and distinctly is not the case; for Science _knows_ nothing whatsoever
+about the origin of man's body. In 1901 Branco, a distinguished
+palaeontologist, with no Theistic leanings as far as we know, told the
+world that man appears on our planet as "a genuine _homo novus_," and
+that palaeontology "knows no ancestors of man." Nor has any discovery
+since that date necessitated the modification of that opinion. What the
+writer means by saying "_We_ know" is "_I_ am convinced"; but, with the
+deepest respect for his undoubted position, the two things are not quite
+identical. "Biology, like theology, has its dogmas. Leaders have their
+disciples and blind followers." Wise words! They are those of the author
+with whom we are dealing. To say "we know" when really we only surmise
+is a misuse of language, just as it is also a misuse to ask the question
+"Does nature make a departure from its previously ordered procedure and
+substitute chance for law?" since the ordinary reader is all too apt to
+forget that "Nature" is a mere abstraction, and that to speak of Nature
+doing such or such a thing helps us in no way along the road towards an
+explanation of things.
+
+Or again: "So far as the _creative_ power of energy is concerned, we are
+on sure ground." The author has a careful note on the word creation (p.
+5), "the production of something new out of nothing," under which
+definition it is abundantly clear that energy, whilst it may be
+_productive_, cannot be _creative_. In fact, nothing can be _creative_
+in any definite and rigid sense, save a _Creator_ Who existed from all
+eternity and from Whom all things arose. One more instance of loose
+argumentation, and we can turn to the main purport of the book. It is a
+link in the author's "chain" which cannot be passed without examination.
+Everybody is familiar with the method of proof by elimination. We set
+down every possible explanation of a certain occurrence; we rule out one
+after the other until but one is left. If we really have set down all
+the possible explanations, and if we are quite clear as to the fact that
+all those which have been excluded are legitimately put out of court,
+then the one remaining explanation must be the true one. It is a method
+of proof which has frequently been applied to the vitalistic problem,
+and with the greatest effect, as it is admitted by some of those who
+would greatly like to find a materialistic explanation for that problem
+(cf. _The Philosophy of Biology_, Johnstone, p. 319).
+
+Let us see how our author employs it. What, he asks, is "the internal
+moving principle" in living substance? And he replies: "We may first
+exclude the possibility that it acts either through supernatural or
+teleological interposition through an externally creative power." Very
+well! Philosophers tell us that we can assume any position we choose for
+the purposes of our argument, but that ultimately we must prove that
+assumption or admit ourselves beaten. We look anxiously for the proof of
+the assumption made by our author, but absolutely no attempt is made to
+give one. We must be pardoned, therefore, if we hesitate to accept such
+an important statement on his mere _ipse dixit_. We pass on to the next
+elimination: "Although its visible results are in a high degree
+purposeful, we may also exclude as unscientific the vitalistic theory of
+an _entelechy_[37] or any other form of internal perfecting agency
+distinct from known or unknown physio-chemical energies." Why
+"unscientific"? Numbers of high authorities have not thought it so; and
+in quite recent years such eminent writers as Driesch and McDougal have
+written erudite works to prove this "unscientific" hypothesis. Is there
+any proof brought forward for _this_ assertion and its corresponding
+elimination?
+
+Let us continue the quotation: "Since certain forms of adaptation which
+were formerly mysterious can now be explained without the assumption of
+an entelechy we are encouraged to hope that all forms may be thus
+explained." The author does not tell us what the mysterious adaptations
+are, nor does he offer us the explanations which, in his opinion,
+explain them. We cannot, therefore, criticise his views, and can only
+remind his readers that, because an explanation plausibly explains an
+occurrence, it is by no means always therefore certain to be the true
+explanation; it may, indeed, be wholly false.
+
+Further, those who have been wandering for the past half-century in the
+fields of science have become a little wearied of "explanations,"
+vaunted, for periods of five or ten years, as the key to open all locks,
+and then cast into the furnace. What the author would seem to mean by
+his statement is this: "I am convinced myself that we can do without a
+'supernatural' explanation, and I regard as 'unscientific' any
+explanation which cannot be put to the test of chemistry and physics;
+hence I must shut the door on anything like an _entelechy_, and, that
+being so, it behoves me to look for some other explanation." Of course,
+we are putting these words into the mouth of our author; if we were
+dealing with the matter ourselves we should be inclined to argue that,
+by the eliminatory method, chemistry and physics do prove, or do help to
+prove, the existence of an entelechy.
+
+With these expostulations we may turn to the writer's pronouncements on
+the vitalistic question which seem to us to be worthy of serious
+consideration. Everybody knows that there are two very diverse opinions
+on this topic; the one that there is, the other that there is not
+something more--a _plus_--in living than there is in not-living
+objects. In other words, that there is a difference of kind, and not
+merely of degree, between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the schools of
+thought called vitalistic and mechanistic. To most persons it has up to
+now seemed impossible that there could be a third school; we appeared to
+be confronted with what the logicians call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn
+seems to us to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear on this
+matter. If we are to "reject the vitalistic hypotheses of the ancient
+Greeks, and the modern vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others,"
+and if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he thinks we must, the
+cosmos as one of "limitless and _ordered_ energy"--we have emphasised
+the word "_ordered_" for reasons which will shortly appear--we must
+clearly look out for some middle way. "_Ordered_," a purely mechanistic
+and materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. "_Ordered_" conditions
+are determined by what we agree to call "Laws"; and these, as all must
+admit, entail a Lawgiver.
+
+The alternative is Blind Chance; and the author, after considering the
+question, agrees, as again most reasonable persons will agree, that
+Blind Chance is no explanation of things as they are. He quotes a modern
+chemist who, discussing the probability of the environmental fitness of
+the earth for life being a mere chance process, remarks: "There is, in
+truth, not one chance in countless millions of millions that the many
+unique properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and especially of
+their stable compounds, water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make up
+the atmosphere of a new planet, should simultaneously occur in the three
+elements otherwise than through the operation of a natural law which
+somehow connects them together. There is no greater probability that
+these unique properties should be without due cause uniquely favourable
+to the organic mechanism" (J. J. Henderson, 1913).
+
+If neither of the classic points of view is tenable, what then is the
+explanation, if, indeed, any be possible? The author casts one brief
+glance down that blind-alley marked "Element Way." Does some known
+element or some unknown element, to which the name _Bion_ might be
+given, exist and form the source of the energy in living things? Radium
+has only been known to us for a few years; can we say that there is no
+such thing as Bion? Of course we cannot; but this we can say, that, if
+there is such an element and if it is really responsible for all the
+protean manifestations of life, wonderful as radium and its doings are,
+they must sink into nothingness beside those of this new and unsuspected
+entity. The author evidently does not think that this path is a
+profitable one to pursue, and we agree with him; so he turns his
+attention to the question of energy. Energy is the capacity for doing
+work. It is often, of course, latent, as, for example, in a cordite
+cartridge, which is a peaceful, harmless thing until the energy stored
+up in it is realised with the accompanying explosion and work is done.
+It is the same with a bent spring; a clock-weight when the clock is not
+going, and so on.
+
+We need not develop this matter further; but one point must be alluded
+to, namely, the gradual exhaustion of the available energy in the
+changes from one manifestation to another. In all physical processes
+heat is evolved, which heat is distributed by conduction and radiation
+and tends to become universally diffused throughout space. When complete
+uniformity has been attained, all physical phenomena will come to an
+end; in other words, our solar system must come to an end, and it must
+have had a beginning. It is a well-known argument. Is there anything to
+rewind the clock which is running down before our very eyes? It was once
+urged that stellar collisions, and such-like things, might permit us to
+postulate a cyclical arrangement (and thus rearrangement) of universal
+phenomena; but that hypothesis does not seem to find any supporters
+to-day.
+
+In his interesting book, already mentioned, Dr. Johnstone called
+attention to the power possessed by living matter of reversing the
+process; but no reversal of this kind and extent can make up for the
+constant degradation of energy which is taking place all round us. We
+mention this because it shows that "energy" cannot, in any case, afford
+an eternal solution, but only a temporal and therefore a limited one. No
+one doubts that there is energy in the living thing, nor that there are
+what the author calls "complexes of energies." No one, again, will
+quarrel with the statement that energy is first seen in the sun, in the
+earth, in the air, and in the water; that "with life something new
+appears in the universe, namely, a union of the internal and external
+adjustment of energy which we appropriately call an _Organism_." That
+"the germ is an energy complex" is no doubt an unproved hypothesis, as
+he admits, but is quite likely. With all these assertions we may agree,
+though we cannot with that which follows, namely, that energy is
+creative, for that such is impossible in any true sense of that word we
+have already tried to show.
+
+We have now to ask ourselves in what way this energy conception of life
+differs from, or goes beyond, the two theories of life--mechanistic and
+vitalistic, which have hitherto been supposed to have exhausted the
+possibilities of explanation. In order to do this we must analyse the
+author's idea of energy and its relationship to biological processes a
+little more closely. He begins his study of life and its evolution by
+considering how nutrition and the derivation of energy can have taken
+place before chlorophyl had come into existence; and he very pertinently
+points to the _prototrophic_ bacteria as probably representing "the
+survival of a primordial stage of life chemistry." Thus a "primitive
+feeder," the bacterium _Nitrosomonas_, "for combustion ... takes in
+oxygen directly through the intermediate action of iron, phosphorus or
+manganese, each of the single cells being a powerful little chemical
+laboratory which contains oxidising catalysers, the activity of which
+is accelerated by the presence of iron and manganese. Still, in the
+primordial stage, _Nitrosomonas_ lives on ammonium sulphate, taking its
+energy (food) from the nitrogen of ammonium and forming nitrates. Living
+symbiotically with it is _Nitrobacter_, which takes its energy (food)
+from the nitrates formed by _Nitrosomonas_, oxidising them into
+nitrates. Thus these two species illustrate in its simplest form our law
+of the _interaction of an organism_ (_Nitrobacter_) _with its life
+environment_ (_Nitrosomonas_)" (p. 82, author's italics).
+
+Once one has got to this stage, it is _ex hypothesi_ easy to ascend
+through the vegetable and animal worlds and to formulate the various
+laws which appear to have shaped the evolution of life and of species.
+We are then "within the system," but to arrive at anything worthy of the
+name of an explanation we have first to _get_ within the system. Even
+then there remains over the task of explaining how the system comes to
+be there to get inside of. The writer talks of his example as "the
+simplest form." Yet, in his own words, it is a "_powerful little
+chemical laboratory_," well stocked with catalysers and other potent
+means for carrying on its work. "Simple"! Well, no doubt comparatively
+simple, but in reality complex almost beyond the power of words to
+describe. "A chemical laboratory"! Yes; and one which performs most
+delicate operations. "Well stocked with catalysers"! And what are they?
+Most wonderful things which induce change without themselves undergoing
+any; discoveries of quite recent date as to which we still know but
+little. "Simple" seems hardly the word to apply, save in strict relation
+to other and higher forms. How did this laboratory come into existence?
+In what way did it learn to do its work? How did catalysers come to be?
+Was all this mere chance-medley? It is Paley's example of the watch
+found on the heath once more. Does it help us in any way to talk about
+"energy" and "complexes" of energy and "the creative force of energy"?
+To us it does not seem to advance matters one little bit. Either these
+operations of _Nitrosomonas_ are determined or they are not; either they
+are the result of a law or they are the result of blind chance; in
+either case the energy which is involved must act according to the
+conditions ordered or not ordered. In other words: if it is the dominant
+factor, as the writer would lead us to suppose; if there is "direction,"
+then the action of energy must be directive; and, if it is directive, in
+what possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old _entelechy_
+or _vital principle_, or whatever else one may choose to call it? On the
+other hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything
+happens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy
+save us from complete surrender to that theory?
+
+From all this it would appear that whilst energy is constantly being
+exhibited (and in all sorts of manifestations) by the living object,
+that does not explain anything, since it does not explain how energy
+originally came to be, nor how it came to work under the laws which
+seem to govern it. It is one more added to the long list of
+"explanations," which hopelessly break down because those who have put
+them forward have never apparently applied themselves to the task of
+grasping the important difference between a final and an intermediate
+cause.
+
+Let us sum up this part of our author's teaching in the light of this
+distinction. The organism is a material complex, and all sorts of
+actions and reactions take place in it. They are subject to the laws of
+physics, and notably to those relating to energy and its
+transformations. It has internal energies which must be adjusted to one
+another and not less to those around it; that is to say, it must be more
+or less in harmony with its environment. There are the problems of
+germ-plasm, and its transmission; the effect on it, if any, of the body,
+and the reaction of the body to its environment. There are also the
+catalysers of which we have spoken, with many problems associated with
+them, and throwing a possible and unexpected light on the vexed question
+of Vitalism and the Conservation of Energy. There are all these things,
+manifestations of energy; there is the watch, and it is going. But, as
+we remarked elsewhere, the fact that we have learned that the resiliency
+of the spring in the watch makes it "go" does not exhaust the
+explanation of the watch any more than the fact that we know something
+of the actions and reactions of energy in the organism exhausts its
+explanation. The watch is "going"; so is the organism. Each of them, in
+a sense, is a "wonderful little laboratory" in which manifestations of
+energy are constantly taking place. The watchmaker constructed the watch
+for that purpose; who or what constructed the organism? Darwin and the
+Darwinians would have said--Natural Selection. In fact, Darwin rather
+lamented that "the old argument from design in nature, as given by
+Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails now that
+the law of Natural Selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue
+that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have
+been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man.
+There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings,
+and in the action of Natural Selection, than in the course which the
+wind blows." There again Darwin fell into a mistake, because he confused
+an intermediate with a final cause. Even if Natural Selection were all
+that the most ultra-Darwinian could claim it to be, it could not, as
+Driesch and others have shown, exhaust the explanation of the organism.
+
+As a matter of fact the world of science is very far from thinking of
+Natural Selection as anything more than a factor, perhaps even a minor
+factor, in evolution. The author of the work with which we are dealing
+tells us that "Darwin's law of selection as a natural explanation of the
+origin of _all_ fitness in form and function has lost its prestige at
+the present time, and all of Darwinism which now meets with universal
+acceptance is the _law of the survival of the fittest_, a limited
+application of Darwin's great idea as expressed by Herbert Spencer." But
+let that pass. In another place the author makes it clear that the
+explanations of to-day, including his own, do _not_ exhaust the subject,
+for he says "it is incumbent on us to discover the _cause_ of the
+orderly origin of every character. The nature of such a law we cannot
+even dream of at present, for the causes of the majority of vertebrate
+adaptations remain wholly unknown." In any case we must account for
+Natural Selection; for if it is a Law--as some doubt--it must have had a
+Lawgiver. The watch must have been an Idea in some one's mind before it
+became an accomplished fact, and Natural Selection or any other "Law of
+Nature" must--unless all reason is nonsense and all nonsense
+reason--also have been an Idea before it became a factor. Whose Idea?
+Our author does not help us to answer this question. On the contrary--he
+tries to set an unclimbable fence in the way of any answer by telling
+us, though without any convincing argument to support his statement,
+that we may "exclude the possibility that it" [the internal moving
+principle] "acts either through supernatural or teleological
+interposition through an externally creative power." But though he
+refuses to allow us to look in this direction for a solution of our
+difficulties, it must be confessed that he does not help us with any
+other answer satisfying the question of the origin and evolution of
+Life.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [Footnote 36: _The Origin and Evolution of Life; or, the Theory
+  of Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy._ By F. H.
+  Osborn. (G. Bell & Sons.)]
+
+  [Footnote 37: By _entelechy_--an Aristotelian term
+  re-introduced by Driesch--is meant an agency other than one of
+  a purely chemico-physical character, which differentiates
+  living from not-living substance, and is responsible for the
+  phenomenon of life.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+INDEX OF NAMES
+
+
+Agassiz, 142
+
+Allen, Grant, 85
+
+Aquinas, St. Thomas, 60, 147, 153
+
+Austen, Miss, 32
+
+Avicenna, 153
+
+
+Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 116
+
+Bassi, Laura, 155
+
+Bateson, W., F.R.S., 4, 7, 11, 118, 150
+
+Bax, Belfort, 37
+
+Benson, Mgr., 84, 88, 94, 101
+
+Bergson, 151, 166
+
+Bernhardi, 20
+
+Borden, Sir Robert, 122
+
+Branco, 162
+
+Buffon, 100
+
+Butler, Samuel 44, 61
+
+
+Chesterton, G. K., 113
+
+Clodd, E., 86
+
+Conklyn, 23
+
+Cowper, 37
+
+Crichton-Browne, 20
+
+Cuvier, 142
+
+
+Darwin, 116, 131, 150, 173
+
+Devas, Mr. 27, 120
+
+Dewar, Prof. Sir J., F.R.S., 113
+
+Doyle, Sir A. C., 46, 51
+
+Driesch, 4, 7, 24, 69, 164, 166, 173
+
+
+Fallopius, 96, 144
+
+Fielding, 31
+
+
+Gosse, E., 39
+
+Gosse, Philip, 98
+
+Grant Allen, 85
+
+
+Healy, Father--Tale of, 40
+
+Henderson, J. J., 167
+
+Henslow, 24
+
+Hull, Fr. E., S.J., 103
+
+Huxley, 74, 98, 101, 117
+
+
+Johnson, Dr. 48, 161, 168
+
+Joly, Prof., F.R.S., 110
+
+
+Kelvin, Lord, 151
+
+
+Lankester, 15
+
+Lauder, Harry, 2
+
+Leduc, 2, 62
+
+Lodge, Sir O., 3, 85
+
+Loeb, J,. 58, 62
+
+Lucas, E. V., on the War, 47
+
+
+Mcdougal, 164
+
+Mahaffy, Sir John, 111
+
+Marett, 15, 16
+
+Masefield, 48
+
+Mendel, 75, 135
+
+Milton, 145
+
+Mivart, Prof., 96
+
+
+Needham, John Turberville, 154
+
+Newman, 33, 38
+
+Newton, The Rev. J., 38
+
+Nietzsche, 19
+
+
+Osborne, Prof., 160
+
+
+Paley, 160
+
+Pasteur, 157
+
+Perkin, Prof. W. H., 107
+
+Pouchet, 157
+
+Priestley, 156
+
+
+Redi, Francisco, 153
+
+Richardson, 31
+
+Rignano, 25, 62
+
+Ryder, Dr., 51
+
+
+Sabatier, 113
+
+Schwann, Theodor, 157
+
+Scott, Prof., 142
+
+Scott, The Rev. Thomas, 38
+
+Sedgwick, Adam, 162
+
+Spallanzani, Lazaro, 155
+
+Stensen, Nicolaus, 75, 97, 99
+
+
+Tilden, Sir William, 64
+
+Tyson, Edward, 77
+
+
+Wasmann, 26, 150
+
+Wells, H. G., 49
+
+Whiffen, 20
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL INDEX
+
+
+Adam, 146
+
+Adrenals, 63
+
+"After-Christians," 120
+
+Aggressive mimicry, 123
+
+Albino race, An, 128
+
+Amazonian Indians, 20
+
+"Anatomie of a Pygmie," 77
+
+Ancestral peculiarities, 133
+
+Aniline dyes, 107
+
+Arrangement, 8, 137
+
+
+Bacteria, Prototrophic, 169
+
+Badische Aniline Fabrik, 106, 109
+
+Bathybius, 98
+
+Bion, 167
+
+Blind Chance, 166
+
+Bondage of Knowledge, The, 84
+
+Botanic Garden, 131
+
+Breeding Committees, 119
+
+Breeding True, 126
+
+Bricks and Builders, 139
+
+"Bugbear of Hell," 21, 119
+
+
+Calvinism, 32
+
+Cartesian idea of the soul, 69
+
+Catalysts, 113, 170
+
+Celibacy, 120
+
+Cell-Theory, The, 157
+
+Chance-Medley, 134
+
+Chromatin, 130
+
+Colloids, 62
+
+"Continuity," 46
+
+Conversion, 34
+
+Cowardice, Alleged, of Catholic Scientists, 99
+
+Creation, 163;
+  a method of, 144
+
+"Criticisms on the Pentateuch," 45
+
+"Cutting up of Frogs," 115
+
+Cytolysis, 65
+
+
+"Dabney, Mr.," 47
+
+Defence of the Realm Act, 82
+
+Degradation of Energy, 168
+
+Derivative Creation, 146
+
+Discontinuity, 3
+
+"Ducks and Drakes," 156
+
+Duck's Egg, 125, 130
+
+Dye-stuffs, 107
+
+
+Elimination, Proof by, 163
+
+Energy, 16
+
+Energy, Degradation of, 169
+
+Entelechy, 164, 171
+
+Eskimo, 19
+
+"Esmond," 31
+
+"Essays and Reviews," 45
+
+Eugenics, 117
+
+Evangelicanism, 32, 33, 44
+
+Exhibitions, International, of 1851 and 1862, 10
+
+Extermination of the Less Fit, 122
+
+
+Families, Restricted, 118
+
+"Father and Son," 39
+
+"Force and Energy, a Theory of Dynamics," 85
+
+"Force of Truth, The," 38
+
+Formaldehyde, 2
+
+Fossils, Explanation of, 97
+
+Free First Cause, 144, 151
+
+Freethinkers and "tolerance, justice, and gentleness," 73
+
+
+Germination, 65
+
+Guide, the Church a, 92
+
+
+Hapsburg lip, The, 127
+
+Harmonious-Equipotential System, 69
+
+Heredity in the Law Courts, 29
+
+Hormones, 63
+
+Horse, Pedigree of the, 161
+
+
+Imprimatur, The, 77
+
+In-and-in breeding, 127
+
+Index Prohibitorius, 95
+
+Industrial Scientific Research, Department of, 114
+
+Inheritance:
+  Chemical theory, 134;
+  Mnemic theory, 5, 61, 133;
+  Particulate theories, 61, 132
+
+
+Jack, Jill, and Joan, 119
+
+Jungle, The law of, 122
+
+
+King-crabs, 145
+
+
+Lamp-shells, 145
+
+Law and Heredity, The, 129
+
+Law and Lawgiver, 9
+
+Law of Nature, 174
+
+Law's "Serious Call," 31
+
+Liberty, personal, 87
+
+"Life and Habit," 61
+
+Life, Origin of, 160
+
+"Little Dorrit," 112
+
+"Loss and Gain," 33
+
+
+Maggots in meat, 153
+
+Man's pedigree, 161
+
+"Marriage," 49
+
+Mauve, 107
+
+Mediate Creation, 147
+
+Memory, unconscious, 5
+
+Mendelism, 6
+
+Method of Creation, 144, 161
+
+Micromeristic theories, 5
+
+Mimicry, 123
+
+Mnemic Theory of Inheritance, The, 5, 61, 133
+
+Monastic Orders, 121
+
+Monophyletic evolution, 151
+
+"Multitude and Solitude," 48
+
+
+"Naturalism and Agnosticism," 57
+
+Natural Selection, 19, 122, 173
+
+"Nature does this," 136, 162
+
+Nature's insurgent son, 15
+
+"New Republic, The," 56
+
+"New Revelation, The," 46, 51
+
+Nitrobacter, 170
+
+Novels and Novelists, 30
+
+
+"Occam's" razor, 29
+
+Occultism, 28, 51
+
+Ordered energy, 166
+
+"Organism as a whole," 38
+
+Origin of Species, 150
+
+"Over Bemertons," 47
+
+Oxford Movement, 33
+
+
+"Pamela," 32
+
+Pangenesis, 61, 131
+
+Pantheism, 9
+
+"Paradise Lost," 145
+
+"Parson Adams," 31
+
+Particulate Theories of Inheritance, 61, 132
+
+Personal Liberty, 81
+
+"Philosophy of Biology, The," 163
+
+Phylogeny, 4, 149
+
+Plymouth Brethren, 99
+
+Political leaders of the day, 114
+
+Polyphyletic hypothesis, The, 150
+
+Porto Santo rabbits, 148
+
+Post-Christians, 27
+
+Prototrophic bacteria, 169
+
+Providentissimus Deus, 103
+
+Pugs and Greyhounds, 126
+
+Purposefulness: a strange confession as to, 59
+
+
+"Raymond," 51
+
+Resiliency, 172
+
+Restricted families, 118
+
+
+Sabbatarianism, 36
+
+Salaries of Scientific Teachers, 112
+
+Saurians, 145
+
+Science, Catholic Men of, 75-6
+
+Science, Neglect of, at Schools, 109
+
+Sin, Mythical Ideas of, 123
+
+Six-fingered race, A, 128
+
+Slavery in the State, 24
+
+"Slime of the Earth," 146
+
+"Social Vermin," 118
+
+"Some Revelations as to 'Raymond,'" 53
+
+Special Creation, 142
+
+Spermatozoon, 65
+
+Spiritualism and the War, 50
+
+Spontaneous Generation, 152
+
+Springs in the watch, The, 172
+
+"Stinks Men," 110
+
+Survival of the Fittest, 122
+
+Syngamy, 65
+
+Synthetic drugs, 107
+
+
+Telepathy, 2
+
+Teratomata, 65
+
+Theophobia, 26
+
+Thermos flask, The, 113
+
+"Throws back," 128
+
+Trilobites, 145
+
+Trinity College, Dublin, 110
+
+"Tyranny" of the Church, 91
+
+
+Uncle Remus and the rabbit's tail, 127
+
+Unconscious Memory, 5, 61
+
+Universities, Mediaeval, 75
+
+
+Vitalism and Anti-Vitalism, 68, 165
+
+
+"Way of All Flesh, The," 44
+
+"Wisdom, Book of," 123
+
+Wolff's Experiment, 69
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PRINTED BY
+HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
+LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have
+been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
+
+page 85
+
+    years in investigating. The man who sets out to make a
+    research, without first acertaining[ascertaining] what others
+    have done in that direction, proposes to
+
+page 121 (Footnote 32)
+
+    Conklyn, _Heredity and Environment in the Development of
+    Men_. Princetown[Princeton] University Press, 1915.
+
+page 136
+
+    mere personification and means either chance-medley or a
+    Creator, according to the old dilemna.[dilemma] There is a
+    very curious example of this inability
+
+page 153:
+
+    We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668,
+    when Franceso[Francesco] Redi (1626-1697) published his book
+    on the generation of insects
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Science and Morals and Other Essays, by
+Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE, MORALS, OTHER ESSAYS ***
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