of Man_, and even of the whole work. Everywhere we find the same want
of rigorous logic, the same absence of method, the same disregard of
principles, and the same abundance of fanciful assumptions. Such is not
the proceeding of science. “I believe,” says Prof. Agassiz, “that the
Darwinian system is pernicious and fatal to the progress of the
sciences.” “This system,” says Dr. Constantin James, “starts from the
unknown, appeals to evidences which are nowhere to be found, and falls
into consequences which are simply absurd and impossible. One would say
that Darwin merely undertook to blot out creation and bring back
chaos.”[111] We cannot, without trespassing on the limits prescribed to
this article, give the scientific arguments by which these and other
eminent writers set at naught the assumptions, the reasonings, and the
conclusions of our eccentric “mammalian,” but we venture to say that if
the reader procures a copy of Dr. James’ work, and examines the
Darwinian theory in the light of the facts that the learned author has
culled from physiology, palæontology, and other branches of science
connected with the history of the animal world, he will be fully
satisfied that the _Descent of Man_ is nothing but a congeries of
blunders.
But we may be asked: How is it possible to admit that a theory so
manifestly absurd should have been received with enthusiasm and lauded
to the skies by men of recognized ability and scientific eminence? The
answer is obvious. Scientific eminence, as now understood, means only
acquaintance with the materials of science, and is no warrant against
false reasoning. “There can be fools in science as well as in any other
walk in life,” says a well-known English writer: “in fact, in
proportion to the small aggregate number of scientific men, I should be
disposed to think that there is a greater percentage in that class than
in any other.” But the same writer gives us another remarkable
explanation of the fact.
“I have read,” says he, “the writings of Mr. Darwin and Prof.
Huxley and others, and had the advantage of personal talk with
an eminent friend of theirs who shares their views, and I have
read without prejudice, but failed to find that they advanced
one solid argument in support of their views. I am quite
certain that, if this controversy could be turned into a law
suit, any judge on the bench would dismiss the case against the
evolutionists with costs, without calling for a reply. The
eminent friend I allude to, himself one of the first of living
mathematicians, and an intimate associate of Tyndall, Huxley,
Spencer, etc., and sharing their views, was candid enough to
admit that the theory was beset with difficulties, that quite
as many facts were against it as for it, that it hardly seemed
susceptible of proof. And when I asked why he held the theory
under such a condition of the evidence; why, on the assumption
of this law, Dr. Tyndall chaffed and derided prayer, and Prof.
Huxley gnashed his teeth at dogma and chuckled over the base
descent of man, his reply was: ‘We are bound to hold it,
because it is the only theory yet propounded which can account
for life, all we see of life, without the intervention of a
God. Nature must be held to be capable of producing everything
by herself and within herself, with no interference _ab extra_,
and this theory explains how she may have done it. Hence we
feel bound to hold it, and to teach it.’ Shade of Bacon! here
is science!”[112]
These words need no comment of ours. We knew already from other
evidences that a conspiracy had been formed with the aim of turning
science against religion, and we now see its work. We have here a
candid avowal that the enthusiasm of certain scientists for the new
theory has its root in malice, not in reason, and is kept up, though
with ever-increased difficulty, in the interest not of science but of a
brutal atheism. In fact, science has nothing to do with the origin of
man; and the very attempt at transforming a historical event into a
scientific speculation clearly reveals the wicked determination of
obscuring, corrupting, and discrediting truth. To carry out their
object the leaders of the conspiracy organized a body of infidel
scientists, doctors, professors, lecturers, and journalists; they took
hold of the scientific press, which was to illustrate the names and
magnify the merits of such men as Moleschott, Louis Büchner, Wolff, Von
Baer, or such men as Clausius, Tyndall, Spencer, and Comte, or as
Huxley, Draper, and Häckel—a task not at all difficult, as these men,
and others whom we might name, were all bound together in a
mutual-admiration society, in which the celebrity of each member was an
honor and an encouragement for all the other members, and the praises
lavished upon each one were repaid with interest to all the others.
Thus they have become great scientific oracles, each and all; and by
ignoring as completely as possible the writings, the discoveries, and
even the existence of those men of science who did not fall on their
knees before the new ideas, they succeeded in creating a belief that
they alone were in possession of scientific truth, and they alone were
enlightened enough to point out with infallible certainty the hidden
path of progress.
Their success, to judge from the number and tone of their scientific
publications, must have been very flattering to their vanity. It is
probable, however, that their noise is greater than their success. The
profligate and the sceptic may, of course, relish a theory which
assimilates them to the ape or the hog, makes the soul a modification
of matter, and suppresses God; but the honest, the pure, the thoughtful
are not easily duped by the low hypotheses of these modern thinkers.
Society in general rejects with disgust a doctrine which aims at
degrading humanity and destroying the bases of morality, religion, and
civilization. If there is no God, rights and duties, the main ties of
the social body, must be given up; justice will become an unmeaning
word, and civil and criminal courts a tyrannical institution. If man is
only a modified beast, if his soul is not immortal, if his end is like
that of the dog, then why should the stronger refrain from hunting and
devouring the weaker? Do we not hunt and kill and eat other animals?
Alas! the progress of humanity towards barbarism and cannibalism is so
intimately and inevitably connected with Darwinism that even the most
uncivilized of human beings would protest against its admission.
That society is still unwilling to submit to the dictation of this
advanced science, and that common sense is yet strong enough to silence
the present scientific blustering, is a fact of which we find an
implicit confession in the writings and addresses of anti-Christian
thinkers. _Nature_, a weekly illustrated journal of science, the
_Popular Science Monthly_, and other publications of the infidel party,
do not cease to inculcate the introduction of science (materialism,
evolution, pantheism, etc.) into the schools frequented by our
children. They have found that our schools are not godless enough to
secure the triumph of unbelief: they are godless in a negative sense
only, inasmuch as they ignore God; but now they must be made positively
godless by teaching theories which do away with creation, which deny
providence, which leave no hope of reward, and ridicule all fear of
punishment in an after-life; and they must be made positively immoral
by teaching that man is always right in following his animal
proclivities, as all other animals do, and that no human being can be
justly called to account for his doings, it being demonstrated by
science that what we call “free-will” is an organic function subject to
invariable laws, like everything else in the material world, with no
greater freedom to choose its course than a stone has under terrestrial
attraction. These doctrines are widely circulated in printed works, but
make few converts, owing to the fact that they come too late, and find
the minds of men already imbued with principles of an opposite nature;
and, therefore, it is now proposed to instil all this poison into the
minds of the young, who have no antidote at hand to counteract its
destructive action. We hope that this new attempt will be defeated; but
when we see that the attempt is considered necessary for a successful
diffusion of the false scientific theories of the day, we cannot be
much mistaken if we infer that the success of such theories up to the
present time has been less satisfactory to the infidel schemers than
their publications pretend.
As for the _Descent of Man_, however, no amount of sophistry, in our
opinion, will succeed in making it fashionable. The Darwinian theory is
utterly unscientific and unphilosophical. Common sense, geology, and
history condemn it; logic proclaims it a fraud; and human dignity
throws upon it a look of pity and dismisses it with ineffable contempt.
Mr. Darwin may yet live long enough to see his theory totally eclipsed
and forgotten, when he will ask himself whether it would not have been
better to devote his talents, his time, and his labor to striving to
elevate rather than striving to debase his kind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MICKEY CASEY’S CHRISTMAS DINNER-PARTY.
In a large, gloomy, bald-looking house in Merrion Street, Dublin, lived
a red-faced, red-haired little attorney rejoicing in the name of Mickey
Casey. There is no man better known in Green Street than Mickey, and no
member of the profession whose services are more eagerly retained by
the luckless ones whose “misfortunes” have brought them within range of
the “blessing of the recorder.” Mickey knows the exact moment to bully,
concede, or back out; and as for the law, it has been said of him that
there is not a dirty lane or alley in the whole of the Acts of
Parliament in which he has not mentally resided for the benefit of his
_clientèle_, as well as to his own especial emolument. When Mr. Casey
was put up for membership of the Law Club, there was much muttering and
considerable frowning in the smoking-room of that legally exclusive
establishment while his chances of success were being weighed in the
balance and found wanting; but the election being judiciously set down
for the long vacation, and Mickey having offered several of the leading
members unlimited shooting over his trifle of property in the
neighborhood of Derrymachulish—which, as all well-informed people are
aware, lies in the very heart of the County Tipperary—somehow or other
he pulled through by the “skin of his teeth,” and became socially, as
he was by act of Parliament, a _gentleman_ in the profession.
Mickey was a cheery little man, who loved a drop of the “crayture” not
wisely but too well, and whose whole soul was wrapped up in his only
child, a daughter, a mincing young lady, who was now close upon her
nineteenth birthday, and who bore a most unmistakable resemblance to
her sire in the color of her hair, her “chaney blue” eyes, and a
bulbous-shaped—vulgarly termed thumbottle—nose.
“I’ve spent oceans of money on me daughter’s education, sir,” Mickey
would exclaim. “Oceans—Atlantic and Pacific. She’s had masters and
mistresses, and tutors and governesses, and short lessons and long
lessons, some at a guinea apiece, sir—yes, begar, a guinea for thirty
minutes jingling on a piana. But she’s come out of it well; I’ve got
her through, and the sentence of the court is that she’s as fine a
performer as there is in Dublin in the way of an amatewer.”
Mrs. Casey was a very stout, very florid, very untidy lady, whose face
never bore traces of any recent lavatory process, and whose garments
appeared to have dropped upon her from the ceiling by chance, retaining
their original _pose_. The parting of her hair bore a strong
resemblance to forked lightning, and her nails reminded the visitor of
family bereavement, so deep the mourning in which they were invariably
enshrined. She, in common with her husband, was wrapped up in her
daughter, and lost to every consideration other than the advancement of
her child’s welfare and happiness.
Matilda Casey was spoiled in her cradle, spoiled at school, spoiled at
home. Her word was law, her every whim gratified, her every wish
anticipated. Her parents were her slaves. Dressed by Mrs. Manning, the
Worth of Dublin, at fancy prices, the newest Parisian toilettes were
flaunted upon Miss Casey’s neat little figure, whilst her mother went
in greasy gowns of antiquated date and old-world pattern. The brougham
was at her beck, and Mrs. Casey was flattered beyond measure when
offered a seat in it. She asked whom she pleased to Merrion Street, and
many people came and went whom her mother never even saw. In
furtherance of her musical talents she had boxes at the Theatre Royal
and Gaiety for any performance it pleased her Serene Highness to
select, while she forced her father to run the gauntlet of musical
societies in order to ensure the necessary vouchers of admission.
And yet Matilda Casey was by no means a bad sort of girl. Her heart was
in the right place, but her brains were blown out—to use a homely
metaphor—by the flattery and incense which were being perpetually
offered up at her shrine, until she was seized with a mad craving to
enter the portals of the best society.
Hitherto she had but stood at the gate, like the Peri, gazing through
the golden bars, and was more or less inclined to accept her position;
but there came a time when she resolved upon endeavoring to _force_ her
way through.
The task that lay before her was a terrible one—a task full of weeping,
and wailing, and mortification, and heart-burning, and gnashing of
teeth. Society in Dublin is as exclusive as in the Faubourg St.
Germain. The line is so distinctly drawn that no person can cross it by
mere accident. “No trespassers admitted” is written up in letters of
cold steel. The viceregal “set” won’t have the professional set, save
those whose offices entitle them to the _entrèe_, and then they are but
tolerated. The professional set won’t know the mercantile set, and here
society stops short. A shopkeeper, be his store as large as Stewart’s
and be he as wealthy as Rothschild, has no chance. He is a Pariah, and
must pitch his tent out in that wilderness peopled by nobodies. The
great struggle lies with the mercantile people to become blended with
the professionals. This is done by money. Of course there are
exceptional cases, but such a case is _rara avis in terris_.
Matilda Casey was in no set. The people with whom she was acquainted,
though not amongst the outcasts, held no position whatsoever. Clerks in
the Bank of Ireland residing at Rathmines; commercial travellers;
custom-house employés; attorneys of cadaverous practice, or of a
practice that meant no weight in the profession; needy barristers
perpetually kotowing to her father for business, and obsequiously civil
to her _as business_—these people with their wives formed her
surroundings, and she was sick of them, tired, disgusted, bored to
death. Why should she not be acquainted with the daughter of Mr.
Bigwig, Q.C., who resided next door? Surely she played better than Miss
Bigwig, and dressed better, and rode in her brougham, while Miss B.
trudged in thick-soled boots in the mud. She had left cards on the
Bigwigs upon their coming to Merrion Street, but her visit had never
been returned, while that shabby little girl, Miss Oliver, was for ever
in and out there; and what was Miss Oliver’s papa but an attorney?
Why was she not at some of the balls perpetually going on around
her?—the rattling of the cabs to and from which, during the night and
morning, kept her awake upon her tear-bedewed pillow.
Why did the Serges, of the firm of Serge & Twist, the linen-drapers in
Sackville Street, leave her out of their invitations to their afternoon
teas? Assuredly they were no great swells, and she had driven Miss
Serge on more than one occasion in her brougham, and had sent Mrs.
Serge a bouquet of hot-house flowers when that lady was laid up with
the measles.
How came it that their social circle never increased save in the wrong
direction? Had she not persuaded her papa to give a brief to young Mr.
Bronsbill, who was possessed of as much brains as a nutmeg-grater, and
whose advocacy cost Mr. Casey’s client his cause, in order to become
acquainted with his family?—Mr. B. having informed her—the treacherous
villain!—that his mother and sisters intended to call upon her.
Had she not thrown open the house to Mr. and Mrs. Minnion, whom she had
met at the Victoria Hotel, Killarney, the preceding summer, in the hope
of those delightful introductions which the artful Mrs. M. had held out
like a glittering jewel before her entranced and eager gaze? Had not
Mr. and Mrs. Minnion eaten, drunk, and slept in Merrion Street? And
whom did they introduce? A little drunken captain of militia, who
insisted upon coming there at unlawful hours of the night, and in
calling for brandy and soda-water, as if the establishment was a
public-house, and not even a respectable hotel!
But Fortune is not for ever cruel, and the wheel will turn up a prize
at possibly the least expected moment.
Mickey Casey knew his daughter’s heart-burning, and strove might and
main to ease it by even one throb. He gave dinner-parties to the best
class of men with whom he was acquainted, feeding them like
“fighting-cocks” upon _petit dîners_ served by Mitchell, of Grafton
Street, and giving them wines of the rarest vintages from the cellars
of Turbot & Redmond.
“Ye’ll come to see us again, won’t ye?” he would say to his guest. “And
I say, just bring your wife the next time. Me daughter will send the
brougham—cost a hundred and fifty at Hutton’s—say Monday next.”
The guest would declare how delighted his wife would be to make the
acquaintance of so charming a young lady as Miss Casey; but when the
Monday came round, and with it a dinner fit for the viceroy, the guest
would arrive wifeless, the lady being laid up with a cold, or “that
dreadful baby, you know,” or “visitors from the country,” and the
banquet would be served in a lugubrious silence, save when the daughter
of the house ventured upon some cutting sarcasm anent snobbery and
stuck-up people.
Matilda Casey could make such a guest wish himself over a mutton-chop
in his own establishment, instead of the salmi of partridge or plover’s
eggs served in silver dishes at Number 190 Merrion Street: and she did
it, too.
“I’ve news for ye, Matilda,” exclaimed Casey one evening as he took his
seat at the dinner-table. “I’ve news for ye, pet. I defended old
Colonel Bowdler in a case in which a servant sued him for wages, and
got him off at half-price. He’s on half-pay, lives with his wife in
Stephen’s Green, and is a tip-topper, mixing with the lord-lieutenant’s
household as if they were his own.”
“Well, and what is that to me?” exclaimed Miss Casey with considerable
asperity.
“This, me darling: he was so pleased at the way I got him out on
half-pay—ha! ha! ha!—that he and his wife—wife, mind ye—are coming to
call on you to-morrow.”
Mrs. Casey was never taken into account, Matilda being the central
figure.
“Pshaw! I wonder you can be such a fool, papa. It’s the old story,”
retorted his daughter. “This colonel will come here, eat our dinners,
drink our wine, and perhaps drop his wife’s card without her knowledge,
as Mr. Neligan did—as we found out to our mortification when we went to
return a visit that was never paid, and were politely told by Mrs.
Neligan that her husband had never even mentioned our names to her.”
“Never fear, Matilda. We’re in the right box this time. They’ll be here
to-morrow, you may depend upon it.”
Casey had his own good reasons for believing that the colonel would
bide tryste—of which more anon. The morrow came, and with it Colonel
and Mrs. Bowdler.
The colonel was a chatty, elderly gentleman of imposing aspect and dyed
hair; his wife a tall, gaunt female, with a vulture-like appearance,
and a sort of sergeant-major-in-petticoats look—the outcome of many a
hard-fought campaign. The colonel had sketched Casey and Casey’s social
desires, and Mrs. Bowdler, like the shrewd veteran that she was, took
in the situation at a glance.
The flutter of excitement at 190 Merrion Street was intense when the
thundering knock came to the door, accompanied by a crashing pull at
the bell.
“Be awfully civil to these people, Jemima,” whispered the colonel as he
entered, “and we can forage here three times a week. Promise them the
moon.”
Mrs. Casey fled to her bedroom for the purpose of arranging her person
in a gorgeous mauve moire-antique all over grease-spots, and Matilda
rushed frantically to the drawing-room, in order to be _en pose_ to
receive the welcome visitors.
The coachman, who acted also in the capacity of butler, was feverishly
hurried from his den at the back of the house, bearing with him a
gentle aroma of the stable, and, even while opening the hall-door, was
engaged in thrusting his arms into the sleeves of a coat—a perfect suit
of mail in buttons.
“Mrs. Casey at home?” asked Mrs. Bowdler.
“I dunno whether the misthris is convaynient, ma’am, but Miss Casey is
above in the dhrawin’-room. Won’t yez come in anyhow?” And the man
motioned them to ascend with considerable cordiality and welcome.
“Take these cards, please.”
“Well, ma’am, me hands is a thrifle dirty; but av it obliges ye—” and
hastily brushing the fingers of his right hand upon the legs of his
trowsers, he took the extended pasteboard in as gingerly a manner as if
he expected it to explode there and then.
The visitors stood in the hall, and so did Luke Fogarty.
“What am I for to do wud this ma’am?” he asked, eyeing it with a glance
full of concern.
“Hand it to Miss Casey,” replied Mrs. Bowdler.
“Oh! that’s it, is it?” And he darted up-stairs with an alarming
alacrity.
“This is a charming _ménage_,” said Mrs. Bowdler.
“A fine open country, my dear; no concealed enemy.”
“Yez are for to folly me,” shouted Fogarty from the top of the stairs.
Matilda was enchanted to see them, and ordered sherry and cake. Mrs.
Bowdler professed herself charmed to make Miss Casey’s acquaintance,
and declared she quite resembled the lord-lieutenant’s youngest
daughter “And in manner, too, Miss Casey, you quite remind me of her.
We are perpetually at the Viceregal Lodge, and _very_ intimate with the
Abercorns. We are asked to everything, and—he! he! he!—it costs us a
small fortune for cabs.”
“You can have my brougham, Mrs. Bowdler.”
“Oh! dear, no, my dear young lady, that would never do; but if you lend
it to me occasionally to take out _dear_ Lady Maude Laseilles, who is
_such_ an invalid. Do you know her?”
Matilda replied in the negative.
As a matter of fact, no such person existed, but it suited Mrs. Bowdler
to create her, Mrs. B. being a lady who would make a shilling do duty
for half a crown. She was a veteran of infinite resources, who had
borne the burden and heat of the day, and who was now bent upon taking
her change out of the world. She had heard of the craving to enter the
portals of society that was devouring Matilda Casey—the attorney had
openly confided the fact to the colonel—and was resolved upon making
the most of the situation. The Bowdlers were hangers-on at the Castle,
mere hacks, who attended the drawing-rooms, the solitary state ball to
which they were annually invited, and St. Patrick’s ball with
undeviating punctuality. They resided in a pinched-looking house in
Stephen’s Green, where Mrs. Bowdler “operated” the colonel’s half-pay
with the financial ability of a Dudelac, stretching every sixpence and
racking the silver coin to its final gasp. They went everywhere,
accepting every invitation, “foraging on the enemy” as the colonel
expressed it, giving no return. Trading upon his military rank, they
managed to go about a good deal amongst very third-rate people, who
were glad to have a colonel to dinner, and a lady who could talk so
familiarly of half the peerage as his wife. A more singularly worthless
or selfish pair was not to be found, or a pair who better knew how “to
work the oracle,” than Colonel Brownlow Bowdler, late of Her Majesty’s
Fifty-ninth Regiment of Infantry, and Jemima, his consort.
Mrs. Casey came smilingly into the drawing-room and almost embraced
Mrs. Bowdler.
“What will ye take, now? Sure ye must take something. Matilda, make
Mrs. Colonel Bowdler take something. Colonel, you’ll take a bottle of
champagne—do, now, that’s right; and I’ll get a little jelly for Mrs.
Colonel Bowdler, and then Matilda will play for ye. She plays lovely.”
“O mamma!” exclaimed Matilda.
“Now, ye know ye do, darling.” And Mrs. Casey, who is the soul of
hospitality, joyously descended to the lower regions, in order to send
up the delicacies she so temptingly set forth.