If we regard each of the causes separately, which we know to
be at present the most instrumental in remodelling the state
of the surface, we shall find that we must expect each to
be in action for thousands of years, without producing any
extensive alterations in the habitable surface, and then to
give rise, during a very brief period, to important
revolutions (vol. ii. p. 161).[22]
Lyell quarrelled with the catastrophists then, by no means because
they assumed that catastrophes occur and have occurred, but because
they had got into the habit of calling on their god Catastrophe to
help them, when they ought to have been putting their shoulders to the
wheel of observation of the present course of nature, in order to help
themselves out of their difficulties. And geological science has
become what it is, chiefly because geologists have gradually accepted
Lyell's doctrine and followed his precepts.
So far as I know anything about the matter, there is nothing that can
be called proof, that the causes of geological phenomena operated more
intensely or more rapidly, at any time between the older tertiary and
the oldest palæozoic epochs than they have done between the older
tertiary epoch and the present day. And if that is so, uniformitarianism,
even as limited by Lyell,[23] has no call to lower its crest. But if
the facts were otherwise, the position Lyell took up remains
impregnable. He did not say that the geological operations of nature
were never more rapid, or more vast, than they are now; what he did
maintain is the very different proposition that there is no good
evidence of anything of the kind. And that proposition has not yet
been shown to be incorrect.
I owe more than I can tell to the careful study of the "Principles of
Geology" in my young days; and, long before the year 1856, my mind was
familiar with the truth that "the doctrine of uniformity is not
incompatible with great and sudden changes," which, as I have shown,
is taught _totidem verbis_ in that work. Even had it been possible for
me to shut my eyes to the sense of what I had read in the
"Principles," Whewell's "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,"
published in 1840, a work with which I was also tolerably familiar,
must have opened them. For the always acute, if not always profound,
author, in arguing against Lyell's uniformitarianism, expressly points
out that it does not in any way contravene the occurrence of
catastrophes.
With regard to such occurrences [earthquakes, deluges,
etc.], terrible as they appear at the time, they may not
much affect the average rate of change: there may be a
_cycle_, though an irregular one, of rapid and slow change:
and if such cycles go on succeeding each other, we may still
call the order of nature uniform, notwithstanding the
periods of violence which it involves.[24]
The reader who has followed me through this brief chapter of the
history of geological philosophy will probably find the following
passage in the paper of the Duke of Argyll to be not a little
remarkable:--
Many years ago, when I had the honor of being President of
the British Association,[25] I ventured to point out, in the
presence and in the hearing of that most distinguished man
[Sir C. Lyell] that the doctrine of uniformity was not
incompatible with great and sudden changes, since cycles of
these and other cycles of comparative rest might well be
constituent parts of that uniformity which he asserted.
Lyell did not object to this extended interpretation of his
own doctrine, and indeed expressed to me his entire
concurrence.
I should think he did; for, as I have shown, there was nothing in it
that Lyell himself had not said, six-and-twenty years before, and
enforced, three years before; and it is almost verbally identical
with the view of uniformitarianism taken by Whewell, sixteen years
before, in a work with which, one would think, that any one who
undertakes to discuss the philosophy of science should be familiar.
Thirty years have elapsed since the beginner of 1856 persuaded himself
that he enlightened the foremost geologist of his time, and one of the
most acute and far-seeing men of science of any time, as to the scope
of the doctrines which the veteran philosopher had grown gray in
promulgating; and the Duke of Argyll's acquaintance with the
literature of geology has not, even now, become sufficiently profound
to dissipate that pleasant delusion.
If the Duke of Argyll's guidance in that branch of physical science,
with which alone he has given evidence of any practical acquaintance,
is thus unsafe, I may breathe more freely in setting my opinion
against the authoritative deliverances of his Grace about matters
which lie outside the province of geology.
And here the Duke's paper offers me such a wealth of opportunities
that choice becomes embarrassing. I must bear in mind the good old
adage, "Non multa sed multum." Tempting as it would be to follow the
Duke through his labyrinthine misunderstandings of the ordinary
terminology of philosophy and to comment on the curious
unintelligibility which hangs about his frequent outpourings of
fervid language, limits of space oblige me to restrict myself to those
points, the discussion of which may help to enlighten the public in
respect of matters of more importance than the competence of my Mentor
for the task which he has undertaken.
I am not sure when the employment of the word Law, in the sense in
which we speak of laws of nature, commenced, but examples of it may be
found in the works of Bacon, Descartes, and Spinoza. Bacon employs
"Law" as the equivalent of "Form," and I am inclined to think that he
may be responsible for a good deal of the confusion that has
subsequently arisen; but I am not aware that the term is used by other
authorities, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in any other
sense than that of "rule" or "definite order" of the coexistence of
things or succession of events in nature. Descartes speaks of "règles,
que je nomme les lois de la nature." Leibnitz says "loi ou règle
générale," as if he considered the terms interchangeable.
The Duke of Argyll, however, affirms that the "law of gravitation" as
put forth by Newton was something more than the statement of an
observed order. He admits that Kepler's three laws "were an observed
order of facts and nothing more." As to the law of gravitation, "it
contains an element which Kepler's laws did not contain, even an
element of causation, the recognition of which belongs to a higher
category of intellectual conceptions than that which is concerned in
the mere observation and record of separate and apparently unconnected
facts." There is hardly a line in these paragraphs which appears to me
to be indisputable. But, to confine myself to the matter in hand, I
cannot conceive that any one who had taken ordinary pains to acquaint
himself with the real nature of either Kepler's or Newton's work could
have written them. That the labours of Kepler, of all men in the
world, should be called "mere observation and record," is truly
wonderful. And any one who will look into the "Principia," or the
"Optics," or the "Letters to Bentley," will see, even if he has no
more special knowledge of the topics discussed than I have, that
Newton over and over again insisted that he had nothing to do with
gravitation as a physical cause, and that when he used the terms
attraction, force, and the like, he employed them, as he says,
"_mathematicè_" and not "_physicè_."
How these attractions [of gravity, magnetism, and
electricity] may be performed, I do not here consider. What
I call attraction may be performed by impulse or by some
other means unknown to me. I use that word here to signify
only in a general way any force by which bodies tend towards
one another, whatever be the cause.[26]
According to my reading of the best authorities upon the history of
science, Newton discovered neither gravitation, nor the law of
gravitation; nor did he pretend to offer more than a conjecture as to
the causation of gravitation. Moreover, his assertion that the notion
of a body acting where it is not, is one that no competent thinker
could entertain, is antagonistic to the whole current conception of
attractive and repulsive forces, and therefore of "the attractive
force of gravitation." What, then, was that labour of unsurpassed
magnitude and excellence and of immortal influence which Newton did
perform? In the first place, Newton defined the laws, rules, or
observed order of the phenomena of motion, which come under our daily
observation, with greater precision than had been before attained;
and, by following out, with marvellous power and subtlety, the
mathematical consequences of these rules, he almost created the modern
science of pure mechanics. In the second place, applying exactly the
same method to the explication of the facts of astronomy as that which
was applied a century and a half later to the facts of geology by
Lyell, he set himself to solve the following problem. Assuming that
all bodies, free to move, tend to approach one another as the earth
and the bodies on it do; assuming that the strength of that tendency
is directly as the mass and inversely as the squares of the distances;
assuming that the laws of motion, determined for terrestrial bodies,
hold good throughout the universe; assuming that the planets and
their satellites were created and placed at their observed mean
distances, and that each received a certain impulse from the Creator;
will the form of the orbits, the varying rates of motion of the
planets, and the ratio between those rates and their distances from
the sun, which must follow by mathematical reasoning from these
premisses, agree with the order of facts determined by Kepler and
others, or not?
Newton, employing mathematical methods which are the admiration of
adepts, but which no one but himself appears to have been able to use
with ease, not only answered this question in the affirmative, but
stayed not his constructive genius before it had founded modern
physical astronomy.
The historians of mechanical and of astronomical science appear to be
agreed that he was the first person who clearly and distinctly put
forth the hypothesis that the phenomena comprehended under the general
name of "gravity" follow the same order throughout the universe, and
that all material bodies exhibit these phenomena; so that, in this
sense, the idea of universal gravitation may, doubtless, be properly
ascribed to him.
Newton proved that the laws of Kepler were particular consequences of
the laws of motion and the law of gravitation--in other words, the
reason of the first lay in the two latter. But to talk of the law of
gravitation alone as the reason of Kepler's laws, and still more as
standing in any causal relation to Kepler's laws, is simply a misuse
of language. It would really be interesting if the Duke of Argyll
would explain how he proposes to set about showing that the elliptical
form of the orbits of the planets, the constant area described by the
radius vector, and the proportionality of the squares of the periodic
times to the cubes of the distances from the sun, are either caused by
the "force of gravitation" or deducible from the "law of gravitation."
I conceive that it would be about as apposite to say that the various
compounds of nitrogen with oxygen are caused by chemical attraction
and deducible from the atomic theory.
* * * * *
Newton assuredly lent no shadow of support to the modern
pseudo-scientific philosophy which confounds laws with causes. I have
not taken the trouble to trace out this commonest of fallacies to its
first beginning; but I was familiar with it in full bloom more than
thirty years ago, in a work which had a great vogue in its day--the
"Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation"--of which the first
edition was published in 1844.
It is full of apt and forcible illustrations of pseudo-scientific
realism. Consider, for example, this gem serene. When a boy who has
climbed a tree loses his hold of the branch, "the law of gravitation
unrelentingly pulls him to the ground, and then he is hurt," whereby
the Almighty is quite relieved from any responsibility for the
accident. Here is the "law of gravitation" acting as a cause in a way
quite in accordance with the Duke of Argyll's conception of it. In
fact, in the mind of the author of the "Vestiges," "laws" are
existences intermediate between the Creator and His works, like the
"ideas" of the Platonisers or the Logos of the Alexandrians.[27] I may
cite a passage which is quite in the vein of Philo:--
We have seen powerful evidences that the construction of
this globe and its associates; and, inferentially, that of
all the other globes in space, was the result, not of any
immediate or personal exertion on the part of the Deity, but
of natural laws which are the expression of His will. What
is to hinder our supposing that the organic creation is also
a result of natural laws which are in like manner an
expression of His will? (p. 154, 1st edition).
And creation "operating by law" is constantly cited as relieving the
Creator from trouble about insignificant details.
I am perplexed to picture to myself the state of mind which accepts
these verbal juggleries. It is intelligible that the Creator should
operate according to such rules as he might think fit to lay down for
himself (and therefore according to law); but that would leave the
operation of his will just as much a direct personal act as it would
be under any other circumstances. I can also understand that (as in
Leibnitz's caricature of Newton's views) the Creator might have made
the cosmical machine, and, after setting it going, have left it to
itself till it needed repair. But then, by the supposition, his
personal responsibility would have been involved in all that it did;
just as much as a dynamiter is responsible for what happens, when he
has set his machine going and left it to explode.
The only hypothesis which gives a sort of mad consistency to the
Vestigiarian's views is the supposition that laws are a kind of angels
or demiurgoi, who, being supplied with the Great Architect's plan,
were permitted to settle the details among themselves. Accepting this
doctrine, the conception of royal laws and plebeian laws, and of those
more than Homeric contests in which the big laws "wreck" the little
ones, becomes quite intelligible. And, in fact, the honour of the
paternity of those remarkable ideas which come into full flower in the
preacher's discourse must, so far as my imperfect knowledge goes, be
attributed to the author of the "Vestiges."
But the author of the "Vestiges" is not the only writer who is
responsible for the current pseudo-scientific mystifications which
hang about the term "law." When I wrote my paper about "Scientific and
Pseudo-Scientific Realism," I had not read a work by the Duke of
Argyll, "The Reign of Law," which, I believe, has enjoyed, possibly
still enjoys, a widespread popularity. But the vivacity of the Duke's
attack led me to think it possible that criticisms directed elsewhere
might have come home to him. And, in fact, I find that the second
chapter of the work in question, which is entitled "Law; its
definitions," is, from my point of view, a sort of "summa" of
pseudo-scientific philosophy. It will be worth while to examine it in
some detail.
In the first place, it is to be noted that the author of the "Reign of
Law" admits that "law," in many cases, means nothing more than the
statement of the order in which facts occur, or, as he says, "an
observed order of facts" (p. 66). But his appreciation of the value of
accuracy of expression does not hinder him from adding, almost in the
same breath, "In this sense the laws of nature are simply those facts
of nature which recur according to rule" (p. 66). Thus "laws," which
were rightly said to be the statement of an order of facts in one
paragraph, are declared to be the facts themselves in the next.
We are next told that, though it may be customary and permissible to
use "law" in the sense of a statement of the order of facts, this is a
low use of the word; and, indeed, two pages farther on, the writer,
flatly contradicting himself, altogether denies its admissibility.
An observed order of facts, to be entitled to the rank of a
law, must be an order so constant and uniform as to indicate
necessity, and necessity can only arise out of the action
of some compelling force (p. 68).
This is undoubtedly one of the most singular propositions that I have
ever met with in a professedly scientific work, and its rarity is
embellished by another direct self-contradiction which it implies. For
on the preceding page (67), when the Duke of Argyll is speaking of the
laws of Kepler, which he admits to be laws, and which are types of
that which men of science understand by "laws," he says that they are
"simply and purely an order of facts." Moreover, he adds: "A very
large proportion of the laws of every science are laws of this kind
and in this sense."
If, according to the Duke of Argyll's admission, law is understood, in
this sense, thus widely and constantly by scientific authorities,
where is the justification for his unqualified assertion that such
statements of the observed order of facts are not "entitled to the
rank" of laws?
But let us examine the consequences of the really interesting
proposition I have just quoted. I presume that it is a law of nature
that "a straight line is the shortest distance between two points."
This law affirms the constant association of a certain fact of form
with a certain fact of dimension. Whether the notion of necessity
which attaches to it has an _a priori_, or an _a posteriori_ origin is
a question not relevant to the present discussion. But I would beg to
be informed, if it is necessary, where is the "compelling force" out
of which the necessity arises; and further, if it is not necessary,
whether it loses the character of a law of nature?
I take it to be the law of nature, based on unexceptionable evidence,
that the mass of matter remains unchanged, whatever chemical or other
modifications it may undergo. This law is one of the foundations of
chemistry. But it is by no means necessary. It is quite possible to
imagine that the mass of matter should vary according to
circumstances, as we know its weight does. Moreover, the determination
of the "force" which makes mass constant (if there is any
intelligibility in that form of words) would not, so far as I can see,
confer any more validity on the law than it has now.
There is a law of nature, so well vouched by experience, that all
mankind, from pure logicians in search of examples to parish sextons
in search of fees, confide in it. This is the law that "all men are
mortal." It is simply a statement of the observed order of facts that
all men sooner or later die. I am not acquainted with any law of
nature which is more "constant and uniform" than this. But will any
one tell me that death is "necessary"? Certainly there is no _à
priori_ necessity in the case, for various men have been imagined to
be immortal. And I should be glad to be informed of any "necessity"
that can be deduced from biological considerations. It is quite
conceivable, as has recently been pointed out, that some of the lowest
forms of life may be immortal, after a fashion. However this may be, I
would further ask, supposing "all men are mortal" to be a real law of
nature, where and what is that to which, with any propriety, the title
of "compelling force" of the law can be given?
On page 69, the Duke of Argyll asserts that the law of gravitation "is
a law in the sense, not merely of a rule, but of a cause." But this
revival of the teaching of the "Vestiges" has already been examined
and disposed of; and when the Duke of Argyll states that the "observed
order" which Kepler had discovered was simply a necessary consequence
of the force of "gravitation," I need not recapitulate the evidence
which proves such a statement to be wholly fallacious. But it may be
useful to say, once more, that, at this present moment, nobody knows
anything about the existence of a "force" of gravitation apart from
the fact; that Newton declared the ordinary notion of such force to be
inconceivable; that various attempts have been made to account for the
order of facts we call gravitation, without recourse to the notion of
attractive force; that, if such a force exists, it is utterly
incompetent to account for Kepler's laws, without taking into the
reckoning a great number of other considerations; and, finally, that
all we know about the "force" of gravitation, or any other so-called
"force," is that it is a name for the hypothetical cause of an
observed order of facts.
Thus, when the Duke of Argyll says: "Force, ascertained according to
some measure of its operation--this is indeed one of the definitions,
but only one, of a scientific law" (p. 71) I reply that it is a
definition which must be repudiated by every one who possesses an
adequate acquaintance with either the facts, or the philosophy, of
science, and be relegated to the limbo of pseudo-scientific fallacies.
If the human mind has never entertained this notion of "force," nay,
if it substituted bare invariable succession for the ordinary notion of
causation, the idea of law, as the expression of a constantly-observed
order, which generates a corresponding intensity of expectation in our
minds, would have exactly the same value, and play its part in real
science, exactly as it does now.
It is needless to extend further the present excursus on the origin
and history of modern pseudo-science. Under such high patronage as it
has enjoyed, it has grown and flourished until, nowadays, it is
becoming somewhat rampant. It has its weekly "Ephemerides," in which
every new pseudo-scientific mare's-nest is hailed and belauded with
the unconscious unfairness of ignorance; and an army of "reconcilers,"
enlisted in its service, whose business seems to be to mix the black
of dogma and the white of science into the neutral tint of what they
call liberal theology.
I remember that, not long after the publication of the "Vestiges," a
shrewd and sarcastic countryman of the author defined it as "cauld
kail made het again." A cynic might find amusement in the reflection
that, at the present time, the principles and the methods of the
much-vilified Vestigiarian are being "made het again"; and are not
only "echoed by the dome of St. Paul's," but thundered from the castle
of Inverary. But my turn of mind is not cynical, and I can but regret
the waste of time and energy bestowed on the endeavour to deal with
the most difficult problems of science, by those who have neither
undergone the discipline, nor possess the information, which are
indispensable to the successful issue of such an enterprise.
I have already had occasion to remark that the Duke of Argyll's views
of the conduct of controversy are different from mine; and this
much-to-be lamented discrepancy becomes yet more accentuated when the
Duke reaches biological topics. Anything that was good enough for Sir
Charles Lyell, in his department of study, is certainly good enough
for me in mine; and I by no means demur to being pedagogically
instructed about a variety of matters with which it has been the
business of my life to try to acquaint myself. But the Duke of Argyll
is not content with favouring me with his opinions about my own
business; he also answers for mine; and, at that point, really the
worm must turn. I am told that "no one knows better than Professor
Huxley" a variety of things which I really do not know; and I am said
to be a disciple of that "Positive Philosophy" which I have, over and
over again, publicly repudiated in language which is certainly not
lacking in intelligibility whatever may be its other defects.
I am told that I have been amusing myself with a "metaphysical
exercitation or logomachy" (may I remark incidentally that these are
not quite convertible terms?), when, to the best of my belief, I have
been trying to expose a process of mystification, based upon the use
of scientific language by writers who exhibit no sign of scientific
training, of accurate scientific knowledge, or of clear ideas
respecting the philosophy of science, which is doing very serious harm
to the public. Naturally enough, they take the lion's skin of
scientific phraseology for evidence that the voice which issues from
beneath it is the voice of science, and I desire to relieve them from
the consequences of their error.
The Duke of Argyll asks, apparently with sorrow that it should be his
duty to subject me to reproof--
What shall we say of a philosophy which confounds the
organic with the inorganic, and, refusing to take note of a
difference so profound, assumes to explain under one common
abstraction, the movements due to gravitation and the
movements due to the mind of man?
To which I may fitly reply by another question: What shall we say to a
controversialist who attributes to the subject of his attack opinions
which are notoriously not his; and expresses himself in such a manner
that it is obvious he is unacquainted with even the rudiments of that
knowledge which is necessary to the discussion into which he has
rushed?
What line of my writing can the Duke of Argyll produce which confounds
the organic with the inorganic?
As to the latter half of the paragraph, I have to confess a doubt
whether it has any definite meaning. But I imagine that the Duke is
alluding to my assertion that the law of gravitation is nowise
"suspended" or "defied" when a man lifts his arm; but that, under such
circumstances, part of the store of energy in the universe operates on
the arm at a mechanical advantage as against the operation of another
part. I was simple enough to think that no one who had as much
knowledge of physiology as is to be found in an elementary primer, or
who had ever heard of the greatest physical generalisation of modern
times--the doctrine of the conservation of energy--would dream of
doubting my statement; and I was further simple enough to think that
no one who lacked these qualifications would feel tempted to charge me
with error. It appears that my simplicity is greater than my powers of
imagination.
The Duke of Argyll may not be aware of the fact, but it is
nevertheless true, that when a man's arm is raised, in sequence to
that state of consciousness we call a volition, the volition is not
the immediate cause of the elevation of the arm. On the contrary, that
operation is effected by a certain change of form, technically known
as "contraction" in sundry masses of flesh, technically known as
muscles, which are fixed to the bones of the shoulder in such a manner
that, if these muscles contract, they must raise the arm. Now each of
these muscles is a machine comparable, in a certain sense, to one of
the donkey-engines of a steamship, but more complete, inasmuch as the
source of its ability to change its form, or contract, lies within
itself. Every time that, by contracting, the muscle does work, such as
that involved in raising the arm, more or less of the material which
it contains is used up, just as more or less of the fuel of a
steam-engine is used up, when it does work. And I do not think there
is a doubt in the mind of any competent physicist, or physiologist,
that the work done in lifting the weight of the arm is the mechanical
equivalent of a certain proportion of the energy set free by the
molecular changes which take place in the muscle. It is further a
tolerably well-based belief that this, and all other forms of energy,
are mutually convertible; and, therefore, that they all come under
that general law or statement of the order of facts, called the
conservation of energy. And, as that certainly is an abstraction, so
the view which the Duke of Argyll thinks so extremely absurd is really
one of the commonplaces of physiology. But this Review is hardly an
appropriate place for giving instruction in the elements of that
science, and I content myself with recommending the Duke of Argyll to
devote some study to Book II. chap. v. section 4 of my friend Dr.
Foster's excellent text-book of Physiology (1st edition, 1877, p.
321), which begins thus:--
Broadly speaking, the animal body is a machine for
converting potential into actual energy. The potential
energy is supplied by the food; this the metabolism of the
body converts into the actual energy of heat and mechanical
labour.
There is no more difficult problem in the world than that of the
relation of the state of consciousness, termed volition, to the
mechanical work which frequently follows upon it. But no one can even
comprehend the nature of the problem, who has not carefully studied
the long series of modes of motion which, without a break, connect the
energy which does that work with the general store of energy. The
ultimate form of the problem is this: Have we any reason to believe
that a feeling, or state of consciousness, is capable of directly
affecting the motion of even the smallest conceivable molecule of
matter? Is such a thing even conceivable? If we answer these questions
in the negative, it follows that volition may be a sign, but cannot be
a cause, of bodily motion. If we answer them in the affirmative, then
states of consciousness become undistinguishable from material things;
for it is the essential nature of matter to be the vehicle or
substratum of mechanical energy.
There is nothing new in all this. I have merely put into modern
language the issue raised by Descartes more than two centuries ago.
The philosophies of the Occasionalists, of Spinoza, of Malebranche, of
modern idealism and modern materialism, have all grown out of the
controversies which Cartesianism evoked. Of all this the
pseudo-science of the present time appears to be unconscious;
otherwise it would hardly content itself with "making het again" the
pseudo-science of the past.
In the course of these observations I have already had occasion to
express my appreciation of the copious and perfervid eloquence which
enriches the Duke of Argyll's pages. I am almost ashamed that a
constitutional insensibility to the Sirenian charms of rhetoric has
permitted me in wandering through these flowery meads, to be
attracted, almost exclusively, to the bare places of fallacy and the
stony grounds of deficient information, which are disguised, though
not concealed, by these floral decorations. But, in his concluding
sentences, the Duke soars into a Tyrtæan strain which roused even my
dull soul.
It was high time, indeed, that some revolt should be raised
against that Reign of Terror which had come to be
established in the scientific world under the abuse of a
great name. Professor Huxley has not joined this revolt
openly, for as yet, indeed, it is only beginning to raise
its head. But more than once--and very lately--he has
uttered a warning voice against the shallow dogmatism that
has provoked it. The time is coming when that revolt will be
carried further. Higher interpretations will be established.
Unless I am much mistaken, they are already coming in sight
(p. 339).
I have been living very much out of the world for the last two or
three years, and when I read this denunciatory outburst, as of one
filled with the spirit of prophecy, I said to myself, "Mercy upon us,
what has happened? Can it be that X. and Y. (it would be wrong to
mention the names of the vigorous young friends which occurred to me)
are playing Danton and Robespierre; and that a guillotine is erected
in the courtyard of Burlington House for the benefit of all
anti-Darwinian Fellows of the Royal Society? Where are the secret
conspirators against this tyranny, whom I am supposed to favour, and
yet not have the courage to join openly? And to think of my poor
oppressed friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer, 'compelled to speak with bated
breath' (p. 338) certainly for the first time in my thirty-odd years'
acquaintance with him!" My alarm and horror at the supposition that
while I had been fiddling (or at any rate physicking), my beloved Rome
had been burning, in this fashion, may be imagined.
I am sure the Duke of Argyll will be glad to hear that the anxiety he
created was of extremely short duration. It is my privilege to have
access to the best sources of information, and nobody in the
scientific world can tell me anything about either the "Reign of
Terror" or "the Revolt." In fact, the scientific world laughs most
indecorously at the notion of the existence of either; and some are so
lost to the sense of the scientific dignity, that they descend to the
use of transatlantic slang, and call it a "bogus scare." As to my
friend Mr. Herbert Spencer, I have every reason to know that, in the
"Factors of Organic Evolution," he has said exactly what was in his
mind, without any particular deference to the opinions of the person
whom he is pleased to regard as his most dangerous critic and Devil's
Advocate-General, and still less of any one else.
I do not know whether the Duke of Argyll pictures himself as the
Tallien of this imaginary revolt against a no less imaginary Reign of
Terror. But if so, I most respectfully but firmly decline to join his
forces. It is only a few weeks since I happened to read over again the
first article which I ever wrote (now twenty-seven years ago) on the
"Origin of Species," and I found nothing that I wished to modify in
the opinions that are there expressed, though the subsequent vast
accumulation of evidence in favour of Mr. Darwin's views would give me
much to add. As is the case with all new doctrines, so with that of
Evolution, the enthusiasm of advocates has sometimes tended to
degenerate into fanaticism; and mere speculation has, at times,
threatened to shoot beyond its legitimate bounds. I have occasionally
thought it wise to warn the more adventurous spirits among us against
these dangers, in sufficiently plain language; and I have sometimes
jestingly said that I expected, if I lived long enough, to be looked
on as a reactionary by some of my more ardent friends. But nothing
short of midsummer madness can account for the fiction that I am
waiting till it is safe to join openly a revolt, hatched by some
person or persons unknown, against an intellectual movement with which
I am in the most entire and hearty sympathy. It is a great many years
since, at the outset of my career, I had to think seriously what life
had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the
chief good, for me, was freedom to learn, think, and say what I
pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction, and have
availed myself of the "rara temporum felicitas ubi sentire quæ velis,
et quæ sentias dicere licet," which is now enjoyable, to the best of
my ability; and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I
should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the
results of the line of action I have adopted.