that these lines exhibit a lack of the qualities justly ascribed to Mr.
Darwin, which plunges their author into a much deeper abyss, and one from
which there is no hope of emergence.
Fourth:--
All the acclamations with which it was received were as the shouts of
an ignorant mob (p. 301).
But surely it should be added that the Coryphaeus of this ignorant mob, the
fugleman of the shouts, was one of the most accomplished naturalists and
geologists now living--the American Dana--who, after years of {319}
independent study extending over numerous reefs in the Pacific, gave his
hearty assent to Darwin's views, and, after all that had been said,
deliberately reaffirmed that assent in the year 1885.
Fifth:--
The overthrow of Darwin's speculation is only beginning to be known. It
has been whispered for some time. The cherished dogma has been dropping
very slowly out of sight (p. 301).
Darwin's speculation may be right or wrong, but I submit that that which
has not happened cannot even begin to be known, except by those who have
miraculous gifts to which we poor scientific people do not aspire. The
overthrow of Darwin's views may have been whispered by those who hoped for
it; and they were perhaps wise in not raising their voices above a whisper.
Incorrect statements, if made too loudly, are apt to bring about unpleasant
consequences.
Sixth. Mr. Murray's views, published in 1880, are said to have met with
"slow and sulky acquiescence" (p. 305). I have proved that they cannot be
said to have met with general acquiescence of any sort, whether quick and
cheerful, or slow and sulky; and if this assertion is meant to convey the
impression that Mr. Murray's views have been ignored, that there has been a
conspiracy of silence against them, it is utterly contrary to notorious
fact.
Professor Geikie's well-known _Textbook of Geology_ was published in 1882,
and at pages 457-459 of that work there is a careful exposition of Mr.
Murray's views. Moreover, Professor Geikie has specially {320} advocated
them on other occasions,[78] notably in a long article on "The Origin of
Coral-Reefs," published in two numbers of _Nature_ for 1883, and in a
presidential address delivered in the same year. If, in so short a time
after the publication of his views, Mr. Murray could boast of a convert so
distinguished and influential as the Director of the Geological Survey, it
seems to me that this wonderful _conspiration de silence_ (which has about
as much real existence as the Duke of Argyll's other bogie, "the Reign of
Terror") must have _ipso facto_ collapsed. I wish that, when I was a young
man, my endeavours to upset some prevalent errors had met with as speedy
and effectual backing.
Seventh:--
... Mr. John Murray was strongly advised against the publication of his
views in derogation of Darwin's long-accepted theory of the coral
islands, and was actually induced to delay it for two years. Yet the
late Sir Wyville Thomson, who was at the head of the naturalists of the
_Challenger_ expedition, was himself convinced by Mr. Murray's
reasoning (p. 307).
Clearly, then, it could not be Mr. Murray's official chief who gave him
this advice. Who was it? And what was the exact nature of the advice given?
Until we have some precise information on this head, I shall take leave to
doubt whether this statement is more accurate than those which I have
previously cited.
Whether such advice was wise or foolish, just or {321} immoral, depends
entirely on the motive of the person who gave it. If he meant to suggest to
Mr. Murray that it might be wise for a young and comparatively unknown man
to walk warily, when he proposed to attack a generalisation based on many
years' labour of one undoubtedly competent person, and fortified by the
independent results of the many years' labour of another undoubtedly
competent person; and even, if necessary, to take two whole years in
fortifying his position, I think that such advice would have been sagacious
and kind. I suppose that there are few working men of science who have not
kept their ideas to themselves, while gathering and sifting evidence, for a
much longer period than two years.
If, on the other hand, Mr. Murray was advised to delay the publication of
his criticisms, simply to save Mr. Darwin's credit and to preserve some
reputation for infallibility, which no one ever heard of, then I have no
hesitation in declaring that his adviser was profoundly dishonest, as well
as extremely foolish, and that, if he is a man of science, he has disgraced
his calling.
But, after all, this supposed scientific Achitophel has not yet made good
the primary fact of his existence. Until the needful proof is forthcoming,
I think I am justified in suspending my judgment as to whether he is much
more than an anti-scientific myth. I leave it to the Duke of Argyll to
judge of the extent of the obligation under which, for his own sake, he may
lie to produce the evidence on which {322} his aspersions of the honour of
scientific men are based. I cannot pretend that we are seriously disturbed
by charges which every one who is acquainted with the truth of the matter
knows to be ridiculous; but mud has a habit of staining if it lies too
long, and it is as well to have it brushed off as soon as may be.
So much for the "Great Lesson." It is followed by a "Little Lesson,"
apparently directed against my infallibility--a doctrine about which I
should be inclined to paraphrase Wilkes's remark to George the Third, when
he declared that he, at any rate, was not a Wilkite. But I really should be
glad to think that there are people who need the warning, because then it
will be obvious that this raking up of an old story cannot have been
suggested by a mere fanatical desire to damage men of science. I can but
rejoice, then, that these misguided enthusiasts, whose faith in me has so
far exceeded the bounds of reason, should be set right. But that "want of
finish" in the matter of accuracy which so terribly mars the effect of the
"Great Lesson," is no less conspicuous in the case of the "Little Lesson,"
and, instead of setting my too fervent disciples right, it will set them
wrong.
The Duke of Argyll, in telling the story of _Bathybius_, says that my mind
was "caught by this new and grand generalisation of the physical basis of
life." I never have been guilty of a reclamation about anything to my
credit, and I do not mean to be; but if there is any blame going, I do not
choose to be relegated to a subordinate place when I have a claim to {323}
the first. The responsibility for the first description and the naming of
_Bathybius_ is mine and mine only. The paper on "Some Organisms living at
great depths in the Atlantic Ocean," in which I drew attention to this
substance, is to be found by the curious in the 8th volume of the
_Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, and was published in the year
1868. Whatever errors are contained in that paper are my own peculiar
property; but neither at the meeting of the British Association in 1868,
nor anywhere else, have I gone beyond what is there stated; except in so
far that, at a long-subsequent meeting of the Association, being importuned
about the subject, I ventured to express, somewhat emphatically, the wish
that the thing was at the bottom of the sea.
What is meant by my being caught by a generalisation about the physical
basis of life I do not know; still less can I understand the assertion that
_Bathybius_ was accepted because of its supposed harmony with Darwin's
speculations. That which interested me in the matter was the apparent
analogy of _Bathybius_ with other well-known forms of lower life, such as
the plasmodia of the Myxomycetes and the Rhizopods. Speculative hopes or
fears had nothing to do with the matter; and if _Bathybius_ were brought up
alive from the bottom of the Atlantic to-morrow, the fact would not have
the slightest bearing, that I can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations,
or upon any of the disputed problems of biology. It would merely be one
elementary organism the more added to the thousands already known. {324}
Up to this moment I was not aware of the universal favour with which
_Bathybius_ was received.[79] Those simulators of an "ignorant mob" who,
according to the Duke of Argyll, welcomed Darwin's theory of coral-reefs,
made no demonstration in my favour, unless his Grace includes Sir Wyville
Thomson, Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Bessels, and Professor Haeckel under that head.
On the contrary, a sagacious friend of mine, than whom there was no more
competent judge, the late Mr. George Busk, was not to be converted; while,
long before the _Challenger_ work, Ehrenberg wrote to me very sceptically;
and I fully expected that that eminent man would favour me with pretty
sharp criticism. Unfortunately he died shortly afterwards, and nothing from
him, that I know of, appeared. When Sir Wyville Thomson wrote to me a brief
account of the results obtained on board the _Challenger_, I sent his
statement to _Nature_, in which journal it appeared the following week,
without any further note or comment than was needful to explain the
circumstances. In thus allowing judgment to go by default, I am afraid I
showed a reckless and ungracious disregard for the feelings of the
believers in my infallibility. No doubt I ought to have hedged and fenced
and attenuated the effect of Sir Wyville Thomson's brief note in every
possible way. Or {325} perhaps I ought to have suppressed the note
altogether, on the ground that it was a mere _ex parte_ statement. My
excuse is that, notwithstanding a large and abiding faith in human folly, I
did not know then, any more than I know now, that there was anybody foolish
enough to be unaware that the only people, scientific or other, who never
make mistakes are those who do nothing; or that anybody, for whose opinion
I cared, would not rather see me commit ten blunders than try to hide one.
Pending the production of further evidence, I hold that the existence of
people who believe in the infallibility of men of science is as purely
mythical as that of the evil counsellor who advised the withholding of the
truth lest it should conflict with that belief.
I venture to think, then, that the Duke of Argyll might have spared his
"Little Lesson" as well as his "Great Lesson" with advantage. The paternal
authority who whips the child for sins he has not committed does not
strengthen his moral influence--rather excites contempt and repugnance. And
if, as would seem from this and former monitory allocutions which have been
addressed to us, the Duke aspires to the position of censor, or spiritual
director, in relation to the men who are doing the work of physical
science, he really must get up his facts better. There will be an end to
all chance of our kissing the rod if his Grace goes wrong a third time. He
must not say again that "no serious reply has been attempted" to a view
which was discussed and {326} repudiated, two years before, by one of the
highest extant authorities on the subject; he must not say that Darwin
accepted that which it can be proved he did not accept; he must not say
that a doctrine has dropped into the abyss when it is quite obviously alive
and kicking at the surface; he must not assimilate a man like Professor
Dana to the components of an "ignorant mob"; he must not say that things
are beginning to be known which are not known at all; he must not say that
"slow and sulky acquiescence" has been given to that which cannot yet boast
of general acquiescence of any kind; he must not suggest that a view which
has been publicly advocated by the Director of the Geological Survey and no
less publicly discussed by many other authoritative writers has been
intentionally and systematically ignored; he must not ascribe ill motives
for a course of action which is the only proper one; and finally, if any
one but myself were interested, I should say that he had better not waste
his time in raking up the errors of those whose lives have been occupied,
not in talking about science, but in toiling, sometimes with success and
sometimes with failure, to get some real work done.
The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness
to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable
lapses. The Duke of Argyll has now a splendid opportunity for proving to
the world in which of these categories it is hereafter to rank him.
* * * * *
{327}
DEAR PROFESSOR HUXLEY--A short time before Mr. Darwin's death, I had a
conversation with him concerning the observations which had been made by
Mr. Murray upon coral-reefs, and the speculations which had been founded
upon those observations. I found that Mr. Darwin had very carefully
considered the whole subject, and that while, on the one hand, he did not
regard the actual facts recorded by Mr. Murray as absolutely inconsistent
with his own theory of subsidence, on the other hand, he did not believe
that they necessitated or supported the hypothesis advanced by Mr. Murray.
Mr. Darwin's attitude, as I understood it, towards Mr. Murray's objections
to the theory of subsidence was exactly similar to that maintained by him
with respect to Professor Semper's criticism, which was of a very similar
character; and his position with regard to the whole question was almost
identical with that subsequently so clearly defined by Professor Dana in
his well-known articles published in the _American Journal of Science_ for
1885.
It is difficult to imagine how any one, acquainted with the scientific
literature of the last seven years, could possibly suggest that Mr.
Murray's memoir published in 1880 had failed to secure a due amount of
attention. Mr. Murray, by his position in the _Challenger_ office, occupied
an exceptionally favourable position for making his views widely known; and
he had, moreover, the singular good fortune to secure from the first the
advocacy of so able and brilliant a writer as Professor Archibald Geikie,
who {328} in a special discourse and in several treatises on geology and
physical geology very strongly supported the new theory. It would be an
endless task to attempt to give references to the various scientific
journals which have discussed the subject, but I may add that every
treatise on geology which has been published, since Mr. Murray's views were
made known, has dealt with his observations at considerable length. This is
true of Professor A. H. Green's _Physical Geology_, published in 1882; of
Professor Prestwich's _Geology, Chemical and Physical_; and of Professor
James Geikie's _Outlines of Geology_, published in 1886. Similar prominence
is given to the subject in De Lapparent's _Traite de Geologie_, published
in 1885, and in Credner's _Elemente der Geologie_, which has appeared
during the present year. If this be a "conspiracy of silence," where, alas!
can the geological speculator seek for fame?--Yours very truly,
JOHN W. JUDD.
_October 10, 1887._
* * * * *
{329}
IX
AGNOSTICISM
Within the last few months the public has received much and varied
information on the subject of agnostics, their tenets, and even their
future. Agnosticism exercised the orators of the Church Congress at
Manchester.[80] It has been furnished with a set of "articles" fewer, but
not less rigid, and certainly not less consistent than the thirty-nine; its
nature has been analysed, and its future severely predicted by the most
eloquent of that prophetical school whose Samuel is Auguste Comte. It may
still be a question, however, whether the public is as much the wiser as
might be expected, considering all the trouble that has been taken to
enlighten it. Not only are the three accounts of the agnostic position
sadly out of harmony with one another, but I propose to show cause for my
belief that all three must be seriously questioned by any one who employs
the term "agnostic" in the sense in which it was originally used. The
learned Principal of King's College, who brought {330} the topic of
Agnosticism before the Church Congress, took a short and easy way of
settling the business:--
But if this be so, for a man to urge, as an escape from this article of
belief, that he has no means of a scientific knowledge of the unseen
world, or of the future, is irrelevant. His difference from Christians
lies not in the fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but that
he does not believe the authority on which they are stated. He may
prefer to call himself an Agnostic; but his real name is an older
one--he is an infidel; that is to say, an unbeliever. The word infidel,
perhaps, carries an unpleasant significance. Perhaps it is right that
it should. It is, and it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to
have to say plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ.[81]
So much of Dr. Wace's address either explicitly or implicitly concerns me,
that I take upon myself to deal with it; but, in so doing, it must be
understood that I speak for myself alone. I am not aware that there is any
sect of Agnostics; and if there be, I am not its acknowledged prophet or
pope. I desire to leave to the Comtists the entire monopoly of the
manufacture of imitation ecclesiasticism.
Let us calmly and dispassionately consider Dr. Wace's appreciation of
agnosticism. The agnostic, according to his view, is a person who says he
has no means of attaining a scientific knowledge of the unseen world or of
the future; by which somewhat loose {331} phraseology Dr. Wace presumably
means the theological unseen world and future. I cannot think this
description happy, either in form or substance, but for the present it may
pass. Dr. Wace continues, that is not "his difference from Christians." Are
there then any Christians who say that they know nothing about the unseen
world and the future? I was ignorant of the fact, but I am ready to accept
it on the authority of a professional theologian, and I proceed to Dr.
Wace's next proposition.
The real state of the case, then, is that the agnostic "does not believe
the authority" on which "these things" are stated, which authority is Jesus
Christ. He is simply an old-fashioned "infidel" who is afraid to own to his
right name. As "Presbyter is priest writ large," so is "agnostic" the mere
Greek equivalent for the Latin "infidel." There is an attractive simplicity
about this solution of the problem; and it has that advantage of being
somewhat offensive to the persons attacked, which is so dear to the less
refined sort of controversialist. The agnostic says, "I cannot find good
evidence that so and so is true." "Ah," says his adversary, seizing his
opportunity, "then you declare that Jesus Christ was untruthful, for he
said so and so;" a very telling method of rousing prejudice. But suppose
that the value of the evidence as to what Jesus may have said and done, and
as to the exact nature and scope of his authority, is just that which the
agnostic finds it most difficult to determine. If I venture to doubt that
the Duke of Wellington gave the command "Up, Guards, {332} and at 'em!" at
Waterloo, I do not think that even Dr. Wace would accuse me of disbelieving
the Duke. Yet it would be just as reasonable to do this as to accuse any
one of denying what Jesus said before the preliminary question as to what
he did say is settled.
Now, the question as to what Jesus really said and did is strictly a
scientific problem, which is capable of solution by no other methods than
those practised by the historian and the literary critic. It is a problem
of immense difficulty, which has occupied some of the best heads in Europe
for the last century; and it is only of late years that their
investigations have begun to converge towards one conclusion.[82]
That kind of faith which Dr. Wace describes and lauds is of no use here.
Indeed, he himself takes pains to destroy its evidential value.
"What made the Mahommedan world? Trust and faith in the declarations and
assurances of Mahommed. And what made the Christian world? Trust and {333}
faith in the declarations and assurances of Jesus Christ and His Apostles"
(_l. c._ p. 253). The triumphant tone of this imaginary catechism leads me
to suspect that its author has hardly appreciated its full import.
Presumably, Dr. Wace regards Mahommed as an unbeliever, or, to use the term
which he prefers, infidel; and considers that his assurances have given
rise to a vast delusion which has led, and is leading, millions of men
straight to everlasting punishment. And this being so, the "Trust and
faith" which have "made the Mahommedan world," in just the same sense as
they have "made the Christian world," must be trust and faith in falsehood.
No man who has studied history, or even attended to the occurrences of
everyday life, can doubt the enormous practical value of trust and faith;
but as little will he be inclined to deny that this practical value has not
the least relation to the reality of the objects of that trust and faith.
In examples of patient constancy of faith and of unswerving trust, the
_Acta Martyrum_ do not excel the annals of Babism.[83]
The discussion upon which we have now entered goes so thoroughly to the
root of the whole matter; the question of the day is so completely, as the
author of _Robert Elsmere_ says, the value of testimony, that I shall offer
no apology for following it out somewhat in detail; and, by way of giving
substance to the {334} argument, I shall base what I have to say upon a
case, the consideration of which lies strictly within the province of
natural science, and of that particular part of it known as the physiology
and pathology of the nervous system.
I find, in the second Gospel (chap. v.), a statement, to all appearance
intended to have the same evidential value as any other contained in that
history. It is the well-known story of the devils who were cast out of a
man, and ordered, or permitted, to enter into a herd of swine, to the great
loss and damage of the innocent Gerasene, or Gadarene, pig owners. There
can be no doubt that the narrator intends to convey to his readers his own
conviction that this casting out and entering in were effected by the
agency of Jesus of Nazareth; that, by speech and action, Jesus enforced
this conviction; nor does any inkling of the legal and moral difficulties
of the case manifest itself.
On the other hand, everything that I know of physiological and pathological
science leads me to entertain a very strong conviction that the phenomena
ascribed to possession are as purely natural as those which constitute
small-pox; everything that I know of anthropology leads me to think that
the belief in demons and demoniacal possession is a mere survival of a once
universal superstition, and that its persistence, at the present time, is
pretty much in the inverse ratio of the general instruction, intelligence,
and sound judgment of the population among whom it prevails. Everything
that I know of law and {335} justice convinces me that the wanton
destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of evil example.
Again, the study of history, and especially of that of the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, leaves no shadow of doubt on my mind
that the belief in the reality of possession and of witchcraft, justly
based, alike by Catholics and Protestants, upon this and innumerable other
passages in both the Old and New Testaments, gave rise, through the special
influence of Christian ecclesiastics, to the most horrible persecutions and
judicial murders of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women, and
children. And when I reflect that the record of a plain and simple
declaration upon such an occasion as this, that the belief in witchcraft
and possession is wicked nonsense, would have rendered the long agony of
mediaeval humanity impossible, I am prompted to reject, as dishonouring, the
supposition that such declaration was withheld out of condescension to
popular error.