[1887]
In the opening sentences of a contribution to the last number of this
Review,[20] the Duke of Argyll has favoured me with a lecture on the
proprieties of controversy, to which I should be disposed to listen
with more docility if his Grace's precepts appeared to me to be based
upon rational principles, or if his example were more exemplary.
With respect to the latter point, the Duke has thought fit to entitle
his article "Professor Huxley on Canon Liddon," and thus forces into
prominence an element of personality, which those who read the paper
which is the object of the Duke's animadversions will observe I have
endeavoured, most carefully, to avoid. My criticisms dealt with a
report of a sermon, published in a newspaper, and thereby addressed to
all the world. Whether that sermon was preached by A or B was not a
matter of the smallest consequence; and I went out of my way to
absolve the learned divine to whom the discourse was attributed from
the responsibility for statements which, for anything I knew to the
contrary, might contain imperfect, or inaccurate, representations of
his views. The assertion that I had the wish, or was beset, by any
"temptation to attack" Canon Liddon is simply contrary to fact.
But suppose that if, instead of sedulously avoiding even the
appearance of such attack, I had thought fit to take a different
course; suppose that, after satisfying myself that the eminent
clergyman whose name is paraded by the Duke of Argyll had really
uttered the words attributed to him from the pulpit of St. Paul's,
what right would any one have to find fault with my action on grounds
either of justice, expediency, or good taste?
Establishment has its duties as well as its rights. The clergy of a
State Church enjoy many advantages over those of unprivileged and
unendowed religious persuasions; but they lie under a correlative
responsibility to the State, and to every member of the body politic.
I am not aware that any sacredness attaches to sermons. If preachers
stray beyond the doctrinal limits set by lay lawyers, the Privy
Council will see to it; and, if they think fit to use their pulpits
for the promulgation of literary, or historical, or scientific errors,
it is not only the right, but the duty, of the humblest layman, who
may happen to be better informed, to correct the evil effects of such
perversion of the opportunities which the State affords them; and such
misuse of the authority which its support lends them. Whatever else it
may claim to be, in its relations with the State, the Established
Church is a branch of the Civil Service; and, for those who repudiate
the ecclesiastical authority of the clergy, they are merely civil
servants, as much responsible to the English people for the proper
performance of their duties as any others.
The Duke of Argyll tells us that the "work and calling" of the clergy
prevent them from "pursuing disputation as others can." I wonder if
his Grace ever reads the so-called "religious" newspapers. It is not
an occupation which I should commend to any one who wishes to employ
his time profitably; but a very short devotion to this exercise will
suffice to convince him that the "pursuit of disputation," carried to
a degree of acrimony and vehemence unsurpassed in lay controversies,
seems to be found quite compatible with the "work and calling" of a
remarkably large number of the clergy.
Finally, it appears to me that nothing can be in worse taste than the
assumption that a body of English gentlemen can, by any possibility,
desire that immunity from criticism which the Duke of Argyll claims
for them. Nothing would be more personally offensive to me than the
supposition that I shirked criticism, just or unjust, of any lecture I
ever gave. I should be utterly ashamed of myself if, when I stood up
as an instructor of others, I had not taken every pains to assure
myself of the truth of that which I was about to say; and I should
feel myself bound to be even more careful with a popular assembly, who
would take me more or less on trust, than with an audience of
competent and critical experts.
I decline to assume that the standard of morality, in these matters,
is lower among the clergy than it is among scientific men. I refuse to
think that the priest who stands up before a congregation, as the
minister and interpreter of the Divinity, is less careful in his
utterances, less ready to meet adverse comment, than the layman who
comes before his audience, as the minister and interpreter of nature.
Yet what should we think of the man of science who, when his ignorance
or his carelessness was exposed, whined about the want of delicacy of
his critics, or pleaded his "work and calling" as a reason for being
let alone?
No man, nor any body of men, is good enough, or wise enough, to
dispense with the tonic of criticism. Nothing has done more harm to
the clergy than the practice, too common among laymen, of regarding
them, when in the pulpit, as a sort of chartered libertines, whose
divagations are not to be taken seriously. And I am well assured that
the distinguished divine, to whom the sermon is attributed, is the
last person who would desire to avail himself of the dishonouring
protection which has been superfluously thrown over him.
So much for the lecture on propriety. But the Duke of Argyll, to whom
the hortatory style seems to come naturally, does me the honour to
make my sayings the subjects of a series of other admonitions, some on
philosophical, some on geological, some on biological topics. I can
but rejoice that the Duke's authority in these matters is not always
employed to show that I am ignorant of them; on the contrary, I meet
with an amount of agreement, even of approbation, for which I proffer
such gratitude as may be due, even if that gratitude is sometimes
almost overshadowed by surprise.
I am unfeignedly astonished to find that the Duke of Argyll, who
professes to intervene on behalf of the preacher, does really, like
another Balaam, bless me altogether in respect of the main issue.
I denied the justice of the preacher's ascription to men of science of
the doctrine that miracles are incredible, because they are violations
of natural law; and the Duke of Argyll says that he believes my
"denial to be well-founded. The preacher was answering an objection
which has now been generally abandoned." Either the preacher knew this
or he did not know it. It seems to me, as a mere lay teacher, to be a
pity that the "great dome of St. Paul's" should have been made to
"echo" (if so be that such stentorian effects were really produced) a
statement which, admitting the first alternative, was unfair, and,
admitting the second, was ignorant.[21]
Having thus sacrified one half of the preacher's arguments, the Duke
of Argyll proceeds to make equally short work with the other half. It
appears that he fully accepts my position that the occurrence of those
events, which the preacher speaks of as catastrophes, is no evidence
of disorder, inasmuch as such catastrophes may be necessary occasional
consequences of uniform changes. Whence I conclude, his Grace agrees
with me, that the talk about royal laws "wrecking" ordinary laws may
be eloquent metaphor, but is also nonsense.
And now comes a further surprise. After having given these superfluous
stabs to the slain body of the preacher's argument, my good ally
remarks, with magnificent calmness: "So far, then, the preacher and
the professor are at one." "Let them smoke the calumet." By all means:
smoke would be the most appropriate symbol of this wonderful attempt
to cover a retreat. After all, the Duke has come to bury the preacher,
not to praise him; only he makes the funeral obsequies look as much
like a triumphal procession as possible.
So far as the questions between the preacher and myself are concerned,
then, I may feel happy. The authority of the Duke of Argyll is ranged
on my side. But the Duke has raised a number of other questions, with
respect to which I fear I shall have to dispense with his
support--nay, even be compelled to differ from him as much, or more,
than I have done about his Grace's new rendering of the "benefit of
clergy."
In discussing catastrophes, the Duke indulges in statements, partly
scientific, partly anecdotic, which appear to me to be somewhat
misleading. We are told, to begin with, that Sir Charles Lyell's
doctrine respecting the proper mode of interpreting the facts of
geology (which is commonly called uniformitarianism) "does not hold
its head quite so high as it once did." That is great news indeed.
But is it true? All I can say is that I am aware of nothing that has
happened of late that can in any way justify it; and my opinion is,
that the body of Lyell's doctrine, as laid down in that great work,
"The Principles of Geology," whatever may have happened to its head,
is a chief and permanent constituent of the foundations of geological
science.
But this question cannot he advantageously discussed, unless we take
some pains to discriminate between the essential part of the
uniformitarian doctrine and its accessories; and it does not appear
that the Duke of Argyll has carried his studies of geological
philosophy so far as this point. For he defines uniformitarianism to
be the assumption of the "extreme slowness and perfect continuity of
all geological changes."
What "perfect continuity" may mean in this definition, I am by no
means sure; but I can only imagine that it signifies the absence of
any break in the course of natural order during the millions of years,
the lapse of which is recorded by geological phenomena.
Is the Duke of Argyll prepared to say that any geologist of authority,
at the present day, believes that there is the slightest evidence of
the occurrence of supernatural intervention, during the long ages of
which the monuments are preserved to us in the crust of the earth? And
if he is not, in what sense has this part of the uniformitarian
doctrine, as he defines it, lowered its pretensions to represent
scientific truth?
As to the "extreme slowness of all geological changes," it is simply a
popular error to regard that as, in any wise, a fundamental and
necessary dogma of uniformitarianism. It is extremely astonishing to
me that any one who has carefully studied Lyell's great work can have
so completely failed to appreciate its purport, which yet is "writ
large" on the very title-page: "The Principles of Geology, being an
attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface by
reference to causes now in operation." The essence of Lyell's doctrine
is here written so that those who run may read; and it has nothing to
do with the quickness or slowness of the past changes of the earth's
surface; except in so far as existing analogous changes may go on
slowly, and therefore create a presumption in favour of the slowness
of past changes.
With that epigrammatic force which characterises his style, Buffon
wrote, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, in his famous "Théorie de
la Terre": "Pour juger de ce qui est arrivé, et même de ce qui
arrivera, nous n'avons qu'à examiner ce qui arrive." The key of the
past, as of the future, is to be sought in the present; and, only when
known causes of change have been shown to be insufficient, have we any
right to have recourse to unknown causes. Geology is as much a
historical science as archæology; and I apprehend that all sound
historical investigation rests upon this axiom. It underlay all
Hutton's work and animated Lyell and Scope in their successful efforts
to revolutionise the geology of half a century ago.
There is no antagonism whatever, and there never was, between the
belief in the views which had their chief and unwearied advocate in
Lyell and the belief in the occurrence of catastrophes. The first
edition of Lyell's "Principles," published in 1830, lies before me;
and a large part of the first volume is occupied by an account of
volcanic, seismic, and diluvial catastrophes which have occurred
within the historical period. Moreover, the author, over and over
again, expressly draws the attention of his readers to the consistency
of catastrophes with his doctrine.
Notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed
within the last three thousand years the devastation by
deluge of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the
future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to
regard them as part of the present order of nature, and they
may be introduced into geological speculations respecting
the past, provided that we do not imagine them to have been
more frequent or general than we expect them to be in time
to come (vol. i. p. 89).