{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24684/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24684","id":"gutenberg_24684","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24684","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science - Biology","Essays","Religion and science","Science"],"text":"Produced by David Clarke and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND MORALS\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND MORALS\nAND OTHER ESSAYS\n\nBY\n\nSIR BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE\n\nM.A., M.D., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., K.S.G.\nOF ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE, TORONTO, ONT.\n\n\nLONDON\nBURNS & OATES, LTD\n28 ORCHARD STREET, W\n1919\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTO\n\nJOHN ROBERT and MARY O'CONNELL\n\nA TOKEN OF SINCERE FRIENDSHIP\n\nLISTARKIN\n  September 1919\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese Essays have all in one form or another appeared elsewhere; and I\nhave to thank the Editors of the _Dublin Review_, _Catholic World_,\n_America_, and _Studies_ respectively for kind permission to reproduce\nthem. Some of them appear as they were published, others have been\nalmost rewritten.\n\n          B. C. A. W.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n                                                    PAGE\n\n   I. Science and Morals                               1\n     Sec. 1. The Gospel of Science                        1\n     Sec. 2. Science as a Rule of Life                   14\n\n  II. Theophobia and Nemesis                          26\n     Sec. 1. Theophobia: its Cause                       26\n     Sec. 2. Theophobia: its Nemesis                     44\n\n III. Within and Without the System                   56\n\n  IV. Science in \"Bondage\"                            74\n\n   V. Science and the War                            106\n\n  VI. Heredity and \"Arrangement\"                     125\n\n VII. \"Special Creation\"                             142\n\nVIII. Catholic Writers and Spontaneous Generation    152\n\n  IX. A Theory of Life                               160\n\n      Index of Names                                 175\n\n      General Index                                  177\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND MORALS\n\n\n\n\nI. SCIENCE AND MORALS\n\n\nSec. 1. THE GOSPEL OF SCIENCE\n\nIn the days before the war the Annual Address delivered by the President\nof the British Association was wont to excite at least a mild interest\nin the breasts of the reading public. It was a kind of Encyclical from\nthe reigning pontiff of science, and since that potentate changed every\nyear there was some uncertainty as to his subject and its treatment, and\nthere was this further piquant attraction, wanting in other and\nbetter-known Encyclicals, that the address of one year might not merely\ncontradict but might even exhibit a lofty contempt for that or for those\nwhich had immediately preceded it.\n\nDuring the three years immediately preceding the war we had excellent\nexamples of all these things. In the first of them we were treated to a\nsomewhat belated utterance in opposition to Vitalism. Its arguments were\nmostly based upon what even to the tyro in chemistry seemed to be rather\nshaky foundations. Such indeed they proved to be, since the deductions\ndrawn from the behaviour of colloids and from Leduc's pretty toys were\npromptly disclaimed by leading chemists in the course of the few days\nafter the delivery of the address.\n\nFurther, the President for the year 1914 in his address (Melbourne, p.\n18)[1] told us that the problem of the origin of life, which, let us\nremind ourselves, in the 1912 address was on the point of solution,\n\"still stands outside the range of scientific investigation,\" and that\nwhen the spontaneous formation of formaldehyde is talked of as a first\nstep in that direction he is reminded of nothing so much as of Harry\nLauder, in the character of a schoolboy, \"pulling his treasures from his\npocket--'That's a wassher--for makkin motor-cars!'\" Nineteen hundred and\ntwelve pinned its faith on matter and nothing else; Nineteen hundred and\nthirteen assured us that \"occurrences now regarded as occult can be\nexamined and reduced to order by the methods of science carefully and\npersistently applied.\"[2] Further, the examination of those facts had\nconvinced the deliverer of the address \"that memory and affection are\nnot limited to that association with matter by which alone they can\nmanifest themselves here and now, and that personality persists beyond\nbodily death.\" Nineteen hundred and fourteen proclaimed telepathy a\n\"harmless toy,\" which, with necromancy, has taken the place of\n\"eschatology and the inculcation of a ferocious moral code.\" And yet it\nis on telepathy, if we are to believe the daily papers, that Sir Oliver\nLodge largely relies for his proofs. Here, at any rate, is a pleasing\ndiversity of opinion which fully bears out what was said at the\nbeginning of this paper. It is, however, with the third address, or\nrather pair of addresses, that we are concerned; for the meeting of\n1914, not only was the first to be held at the Antipodes, but also the\nfirst to be honoured with two addresses--one in Melbourne, the other in\nSydney.\n\nTheir deliverer is a very distinguished and a very independent man of\nScience. It was he who insisted, at a time when the domination of a very\nrigid form of Darwinism was much stronger than it is to-day, that the\npicture of Nature as seen by us is a Discontinuous picture, though\nDiscontinuity does not exist in the environment. And it was he who asked\nwhether the Discontinuity might not be in the living thing itself, and\nprefixed to the monumental work[3] in which he discussed this question\nthe significant text from the Bible: \"All flesh is not the same flesh;\nbut there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another\nof fishes, and another of birds.\" Nearer to our own times, he was one of\na small body of men of science who almost synchronously disinterred the\nforgotten works of Abbot Mendel, and proclaimed them to the world, as\ncontaining discoveries of the first value. He was thus always something\nof a \"Herald of Revolt,\" and maintains that character in these\naddresses. \"We go to Darwin for his incomparable collection of facts. We\nwould fain emulate his scholarship, his width and his power of\nexposition, but to us he speaks no more with philosophical authority. We\nread his scheme of evolution as we would those of Lucretius or Lamarck,\ndelighting in their simplicity and their courage\" (M., p. 9).\n\"Naturally, we turn aside from generalities. It is no time to discuss\nthe origin of the Mollusca or of Dicotyledons, while we are not even\nsure how it came to pass that _Primula obconica_ has in twenty-five\nyears produced its abundant new forms almost under our eyes\" (_ib._,\n_ib._). And so on. To take one other example: there is nothing which was\nmore insisted upon by Darwinians than the fact that all the various\nraces of domestic fowl known to us came from _Gallus bankiva_, the\njungle-fowl of India; in fact I think I have seen that form enthroned\namongst its supposed descendants in more than one museum. \"So we are\ntaught; but try to reconstruct the steps in their evolution and you\nrealise your hopeless ignorance\" (M., p. 11). If we cannot construct a\n\"tree\" for fowls, how absurd to adventure into the deeper recesses of\nPhylogeny. If all that Professor Bateson says is true, is not Driesch\nright when he speaks of \"the phantasy christened Phylogeny\"?[4]\n\nThe addresses, however, were not solely concerned with throwing contempt\nupon views which were yesterday of great respectability, and which even\nto-day are as gospel to many. They devoted themselves chiefly to the\nconsideration of the question of heredity, viewed, as might be expected,\nfrom the Mendelian standpoint.\n\nNow, at this point it may be said that there are at least two things\nwhich we should like to know about heredity--the vehicle and the laws.\nIt is clear that we might know something, perhaps even a good deal,\nabout one of these without knowing anything about the other.\n\nSuch in fact is the case; for we know, it may fairly be said, nothing\nabout the vehicle. There are two very widely distinct opinions on this\npoint. There is the mnemic theory, recently brought before us by the\nrepublication of Butler's most interesting and suggestive work with its\ntranslations of Hering's original paper and Von Hartmann's discourse and\nits very illuminating introduction by Professor Hartog.[5]\n\nAnd there is the continuity theory which teaches that in some way or\nanother the characteristics of the parents and other ancestors are\nphysical parts of the germ. An attempt to explain this was made by\nDarwin in his theory of Pangenesis. Others have essayed what Yves Delage\ncalls \"micromeristic\" interpretations. As to all of these it may be said\nthat when they are reduced to figures the explanation becomes of so\ncomplex a character as utterly to break down. We shall see that\nProfessor Bateson adopts a third very nebulous explanation. But as\nregards the laws of heredity there is something else to be said; for\nhere we really do know something, and that something we owe in large\nmeasure to the innumerable experiments which have been made on Mendelian\nlines since the re-discovery of the methods first adopted by the\ncelebrated Abbot of Bruenn. It is no intention of the writer of this\npaper to describe the Mendelian theory,[6] which is well known, at least\nto all biological readers, though one or two points in connection with\nit may yet have to be touched upon.\n\nThe point of cardinal importance in connection with Mendelism is that it\ndoes reveal a law capable of being numerically stated, and apparently\napplicable to a large number of isolated factors in living things.\nIndeed it was this attention to isolated factors which was the first and\nessential part of Mendel's method. For example, others had been content\nto look at the pea as a whole. Mendel applied his analytic method to\nsuch things as the colour of the pea, the smooth or wrinkled character\nof the skin which covered it, its dwarfness or height, and so on.\n\nNow, the behaviour of these isolated factors seems to throw a light even\nupon the vehicle of heredity. We often talk of \"blood\" and \"mixing of\nblood,\" as if blood had anything to do with the question, when really\nthe Biblical expression \"the seed of Abraham\" is much more to the point.\nFor it is in the seed that these factors must be, whether they be mnemic\nor physical. Professor Bateson (M., p. 5) thinks it obvious that they\nare transmitted by the spermatozoon and the ovum; but it seems to him\n\"unlikely that they are in any simple or literal sense material\nparticles.\" And he goes on to say, and this, I think, is one of his most\nimportant statements: \"I suspect rather that their properties depend on\nsome phenomenon of arrangement.\"\n\nNow, if there be a law behind the phenomena made clear to us by\nMendelian experiments (as Mendelians are never tired of asserting), then\nit becomes in no way impertinent to ask how that law came into\nexistence, and who formulated it. Darwinism, according to Driesch,[7]\n\"explained how by throwing stones one could build houses of a typical\nstyle.\" In other words, it \"claimed to show how something purposively\nconstructed could arise by absolute chance; at any rate this holds of\nDarwinism as codified in the seventies and eighties.\" Of course the\nBlind Chance doctrine breaks down utterly when it comes to be applied to\nselected cases, and nothing more definitely disposes of it than the very\ndefinite law which emerges as the result of the Mendelian experiments.\nThat is obvious to the prophets of Mendelism; but, whilst they admit\nthis, they will have nothing to say to the lawgiver. That is the\n\"rankest metaphysics,\" as Dr. Johnstone puts it,[8] or \"mysticism,\" as\nothers prefer to call it. And yet nothing is more clear than the\nlogical sequence that, if you have a law, someone must have made it,\nand if you look upon something as \"a phenomenon of arrangement,\" someone\nmust have arranged it. But for reasons not obvious nor confessed, there\nis an objection to make any such admission. Perhaps it is the taint of\nthe monism of the latter half of the last century which still persists.\n\nAt any rate, as I have elsewhere pointed out, there is a most curious\npassage in another paper by the same author in which he says: \"With the\nexperimental proof that variation consists largely in the unpacking and\nrepacking of an original complexity, it is not so certain as we might\nlike to think that the order of these events is not pre-determined.\" The\nwriter hastens to denounce the horrid heresy on the brink of which he\nfinds himself hesitating, by adding that he sees \"no ground whatever for\nholding such a view,\" though \"in the light of modern research it\nscarcely looks so absurdly improbable as before.\"[9] It is curious that\nthe writer in question does not seem to have been in any way influenced\nby the eliminative argument so potent in connection with the discussion\non Vitalism. We ask for an explanation of the occurrences--say of\nregeneration. We find that no physical explanation in the least meets\nthe needs of the case, and we are consequently obliged to look for it in\nsomething differing from the operations of chemistry and physics. Of\nthis argument Dr. Johnstone[10] says: \"It is almost impossible to\noverestimate the appeal which it makes to the investigator.\"\n\nNow, this matter of \"arrangement\" or of \"pre-determination,\" when put\nforward as an explanation, even tentatively, necessitates a step\nfurther. That step might possibly be in the direction of pantheism,\nthough, according to Driesch,[11] pantheism is the doctrine \"that\nreality is a something which makes itself ('_dieu se fait_,' in the\nwords of Bergson), whilst theism would be any theory according to which\nthe manifoldness of material reality is predetermined in an immaterial\nway.\" And he concludes \"that those who regard the thesis of the theory\nof order as necessary for everything that is or can be, must accept\ntheism, and are not allowed to speak of '_dieu qui se fait_.'\" It is\ndifficult to see how anyone who has studied the rigid order exhibited by\nexperiments on Mendelian lines can resist the logic of this argument\nunless indeed he takes a place on Plate's platform, which admits that a\nlaw entails a lawgiver, but declares that of the Lawgiver of Natural\nLaws we can know nothing.[12]\n\nThere is a further point in connection with Mendelian theories which is\nworth noting in this connection. It would appear that no new factor is\never brought into being, that is, no _addition_ is ever made by\nvariation. According to this theory the things which appear to be\nadded--a new colour or a new scent--were there all the time. They were\n\"stopped down\" or inhibited by some other factor, which, when\neliminated, allows them to come into play, and thus to become obvious to\nthe observer from whom they had been hidden. Thus, Professor Bateson\n(M., p. 17) has confidence \"that the artistic gifts of mankind will\nprove to be due, not to something added to the make-up of an ordinary\nman, but to the absence of factors which in the normal person inhibit\nthe development of these gifts. They are almost beyond doubt to be\nlooked upon as _releases_ of powers normally suppressed. The instrument\nis there, but it is 'stopped down.'\"\n\nThat all sorts of things may exist in a very small compass no doubt\nis true. Professor Bateson reminds us that Shakespeare was once\n\"a speck of protoplasm not so big as a small pin's head.\" The\ndifficulty--insuperable on ordinary monistic lines--is how all these\nthings got into the germ if no additions ever take place. It was so\ndifficult to account, for example, for artistic appreciation on the part\nof man or for gifts of an artistic character that Huxley was fain to\ndescribe them as gratuitous; but on this showing all characters are\ngratuitous in the sense that they are not acquired. We may reasonably\ninquire not merely how all these characters and factors got themselves\n\"arranged\" or \"packed,\" but where they came from, and how they came to\nbe in the germ at all, matters on which we receive no information in\nthese addresses. No doubt the author of the addresses would say that it\nwas no part of his business to explain this matter; that he took this\nsystem of Nature as a going system and did his best to explain it as\nsuch and without attempting, perhaps even without desiring, to explain\nhow it got a-going. If that be the case, and if ignorance on this head\nmust be his confession, it is a little difficult to understand the\nconfidence with which he sets himself to discuss the \"extraordinary and\nfar-reaching changes in public opinion [which] are coming to pass.\" We\nshall find these, as we pass them in review, to be extraordinary enough,\nthough not very new.\n\nIn the first place, \"genetic research will make it possible for a nation\nto elect by what sort of beings it will be represented not very many\ngenerations hence, much as a farmer can decide whether his byres shall\nbe full of shorthorns or Herefords. It will be very surprising indeed if\nsome nation does not make trial of this new power. They may make awful\nmistakes, but I think they will try\" (S., p. 8). It is curious how the\nwar, which had just commenced when these addresses were being delivered,\nhas absolutely disposed, or ought to have disposed, of some of the\nprophecies of the President. Nothing, at any rate, seems more certain\nthan that one result of this most disastrous struggle will be an urgent\ndemand by all the States engaged in it for at least as many male\nchildren as the mothers of each country can supply, without special\nregard to their other characters, breedable or not breedable. We are\neven told that Germany is resorting to expedients which cannot be\njustified on Christian principles to fill her depleted homes. Whether\nthis be true or not the fact remains that nothing is now more to be\ndesired by all the combatant nations than what we call in Ireland \"long\nfamilies.\" But even if there had been no war, there is one other factor\nwhich makes it quite certain that no country ever will try, or if it\nventures to try, will ever succeed in any such experiment, and that\nfactor, forgotten by philosophers of this kind, is human nature. Mr.\nFrankfort Moore years ago wrote a pleasant story, called \"The Marriage\nLease,\" in which doctrinaire legislation of a somewhat similar kind was\ndescribed, and its inevitable failure most amusingly depicted. The war\ndisposes of another of the President's maxims (S., p. 10), that the\ndecline in the birth-rate of a country is nothing to be grieved about,\nand that \"the slightest acquaintance with biology\" shows that the\n\"inference may be wholly wrong,\" which asserts that \"a nation in which\npopulation is not rapidly increasing must be in a decline\" (S., p. 10).\nHuman nature was neglected in the first-mentioned case, and here it is\nthe turn of history to pass into the shade, history which, _pace_ the\nPresident, has really a good deal more bearing upon a question of this\nkind than the \"school-boy natural history\" which he thinks capable of\nsettling it. Thus we advance from breeding to Malthusianism. It is\nperhaps not wonderful that our next step should be the quiet, and of\ncourse painless, extinction of the unfit.\n\n    \"Thou shalt not kill, but needs't not strive\n     Officiously to keep alive.\"\n\nThus wrote Clough; but our author, it appears, would go further than\nthis. \"The preservation of an infant so gravely diseased that it can\nnever be happy or come to any good is something very like wanton\ncruelty. In private life few men defend such interference\" (S. 10). And\nso such unfortunates should be got rid of, and will be \"as soon as\nscientific knowledge becomes common property\"--when \"views more\nreasonable, and, I may add, more humane are likely to prevail.\" Lest we\nshould be depressed by this massacre of the innocents, we are told that\n\"man is just beginning to know himself for what he is--a rather\nlong-lived animal, with great powers of enjoyment if he does not\ndeliberately forgo them\" (S., p. 9). In the past, poor fool that he has\nbeen, he has not availed himself of his opportunities: \"Hitherto\nsuperstition and mythical ideas of sin have predominantly controlled\nthese powers.\" Let us, however, take heart: \"Mysticism will not die out;\nfor those strange fancies knowledge is no cure; but their forms may\nchange, and mysticism as a force for the suppression of joy is happily\nlosing its hold on the modern world\" (_ib._, _ib._). Let us eat and\ndrink--and, it may be added, sin--for to-morrow we die. Such is the new\ngospel of science, an old enough gospel, tried and found wanting years\nbefore its latest prophet arose to proclaim it to the world. Surely no\nmore ridiculous utterance ever was made; for its author evidently did\nnot pause to consider that the sins which make life pleasant to some\n(for example, Thuggery) are apt to have quite another aspect to those\nthrough whose victimisation the pleasure is obtained. There is also here\nsuch a thing as the conscience, which has to be taken into account. Even\nthe biological hedonist must originally possess such a thing and, it may\nbe supposed, must deal with it as he would with the gravely diseased\nchildren, and as something which would \"predominantly control his powers\nof enjoyment.\"\n\nSeriously, it may be doubted if a more pagan code of morals has ever\nbeen laid down, and this in the Encyclical of Science for the year, a\ncode bad enough to make poor Mendel turn in his grave could he--good,\nhonest man--be aware of it, and imagine that he was in any way\nresponsible for it, which, by the way, is in no way the case.\n\n\nSec. 2. SCIENCE AS A RULE OF LIFE\n\nSaint or sinner, some rule of life we must have, even if we are wholly\nunconscious of the fact. A spiritual director will help us to map out a\ncourse of action which will assist us to shake off some little of the\ndust of this dusty world; and a doctor will lay down for us a dietary\nwhich will help us to elude, for a time at least, the insidious onsets\nof the gout. Even if we take no formal steps, spiritual or corporeal,\nsome rule of life we must achieve for ourselves. We must, for example,\nmake up our minds whether we are to open our ears and our purse to tales\nof misery, or are to join ourselves with those whose rule of life it is\nto keep that which they have for themselves. What is true of each of us\nis none the less true of each and every race--even more true; for each\nrace must make up its mind definitely as to which rule it will follow.\nAnd at the moment there is still doubt and indecision in this matter.\n\n\"The moral problem that confronts Europe to-day is: What sort of\nrighteousness are we, individually and collectively, to pursue? Is the\nnew righteousness to be realised in a return to the old brutality? Shall\nthe last values be as the first? Must ethical process conform to natural\nprocess as exemplified by the life of any animal that secures dominancy\nat the expense of the weaker members of its kind?\"[13] Such are the\nquestions raised by a man of science occupying the Presidential Chair of\nan important society and speaking to that society as its President.\n\nAs to the Christian ideals little need be said, since we know very well\nwhat they are, and know this most especially, that practically all of\nthem are in direct opposition to what we may call the ideals of Nature,\nand exercise all their influence in frustrating such laws as that of\nNatural Selection. \"Nature's Insurgent Son,\" as Sir Ray Lankester calls\nhim,[14] is at constant war with Nature, and when we come to consider\nthe matter carefully, in that respect most fully differentiates himself\nfrom all other living things, none of which make any attempt to control\nthe forces of Nature for their own advantage. \"Nature's inexorable\ndiscipline of death to those who do not rise to her standard--survival\nand parentage for those alone who do--has been from the earliest times\nmore and more definitely resisted by the will of man. If we may for the\npurpose of analysis, as it were, extract man from the rest of Nature, of\nwhich he is truly a product and a part, then we may say that man is\nNature's rebel. Where Nature says 'Die!' man says 'I will live.'\"[15]\n\nTo this it may be added that, under the influence of Christianity, man\ngoes a step further and says: \"I will endeavour that as many others as\nmay be shall live, and live happy, healthy lives, and shall not untimely\ndie.\" The law of Natural Selection could not be met by more direct\nopposition. I have said that this is under the influence of\nChristianity, yet the impulse seems to be older than that, to be part of\nthat moral law which excited Kant's admiration, which he coupled with\nthe sight of the starry heavens, an impulse, we can scarcely doubt,\nimplanted in the heart of man by God Himself. It is a remarkable fact\nthat in many--some would say most--of the less civilised races of\nmankind we find these social virtues, which some would have us believe\nare degenerate features foisted on to the race by an enervating\nsuperstition.\n\nDr. Marett has carefully examined into this matter, and his conclusions\nare of the greatest interest.[16]\n\n     \"My own theory about the peasant, as I know him, and about\n     people of lowly culture in general so far as I have learnt\n     to know about them, is that the ethics of amity belong to\n     their natural and normal mood, whereas the ethics of enmity,\n     being but 'as the shadow of a passing fear,' are relatively\n     accidental. Thus to the thesis that human charity is a\n     by-product, I retort squarely with the counter-thesis that\n     human hatred is a by-product. The brute that lurks in our\n     common human nature will break bounds sometimes; but I\n     believe that whenever man, be he savage or civilised, is at\n     home to himself, his pleasure and pride is to play the good\n     neighbour. It may be urged by way of objection that I\n     overestimate the amenities, whether economic or ethical, of\n     the primitive state; that a hard life is bound to produce a\n     hard man. I am afraid that the psychological necessity of\n     the alleged correlation is by no means evident to me. Surely\n     the hard-working individual can find plenty of scope for his\n     energies without needing, let us say, to beat his wife. Nor\n     are the hard-working peoples of the earth especially\n     notorious for their inhumanity. Thus the Eskimo, whose life\n     is one long fight against the cold, has the warmest of\n     hearts. Mr. Stefanson says of his newly discovered 'Blonde\n     Eskimo,' a people still living in the stone age: 'They are\n     the equals of the best of our own race in good breeding,\n     kindness, and the substantial virtues.'[17] Or again, heat\n     instead of cold may drive man to the utmost limit of his\n     natural affections. In the deserts of Central Australia,\n     where the native is ever threatened by a scarcity of food,\n     his constant preoccupation is not how to prey on his\n     companions. Rather he unites with them in guilds and\n     brotherhoods, so that they may feast together in the spirit,\n     sustaining themselves with the common hope and mutual\n     suggestion of better luck to come. But there is no need to\n     go so far afield for one's proofs. I appeal to those who\n     have made it their business to be intimate with the folk of\n     our own countryside. Is it not the fact that unselfishness\n     in regard to the sharing of the necessaries of life is\n     characteristic of those who find them most difficult to come\n     by? The poor are by no means the least 'rich towards God.'\n     At any rate, if poverty sometimes hardens, wealth,\n     especially sudden wealth, can harden too, causing arrogance,\n     boastfulness, and the bullying temper. 'A proud look, a\n     lying tongue, and the shedding of innocent blood'--these go\n     together.\"\n\nOn the whole, then, we may perhaps conclude that the natural bias of\nmankind is towards kindness to his neighbour, however much the brute in\nhim may sometimes impel him to uncharitable words or actions. And\ncertainly this natural bias is intensified and made into a binding law\nby the teachings of Christ. But there is the other point of view set\nforward in the philosophy of Nietzsche--if indeed such writings are\nworthy of the name philosophy. \"The world is for the superman. Dominancy\nwithin the human kind must be secured at all costs. As for the old\nvalues, they are all wrong. Christian humility is a slavish virtue; so\nis Christian charity. Such values have become 'denaturalised.' They are\nthe by-product of certain primitive activities, which were intended by\nNature to subserve strictly biological ends, but have somehow escaped\nfrom Nature's control and run riot on their own account.\"\n\nThe prophets of this group of ideals, or some such group of ideals, have\nno hesitation in telling us how they would direct the affairs of\nhumanity if they were entrusted with their conduct. It will not be\nwithout interest to consider their plans and to endeavour to form some\nsort of an idea of what kind of place the world would be if they had\ntheir way. We can then form our own opinion as to whether a world\nconducted on such lines would be in any way a tolerable place for human\nexistence.\n\nFirst of all we may dwell briefly on Natural Selection as a rule of\nlife, since it has been put forward as such by quite a number of\npersons. Never, let it at once be said, by the great and gentle-hearted\noriginator of that theory, who during his life had to protest as to the\nignorant and exaggerated ideas which were expressed about it and who,\nwere he now alive, would certainly be shocked at the teachings which are\nsupposed to follow from his theory and the dire results which they have\nproduced.[18]\n\nIn the first place such a doctrine leads directly to the conclusion that\nwar, instead of being the curse and disaster which all reasonable\npeople, not to say all Christians, feel it to be, is, as Bernhardi puts\nit, \"a biological necessity, a regulative element in the life of mankind\nthat cannot be dispensed with.\" It is \"the basis of all healthy\ndevelopment.\" \"Struggle is not merely the destructive but the\nlife-giving principle. The law of the strong holds good everywhere.\nThose forms survive which are able to secure for themselves the most\nfavourable conditions. The weaker succumb.\" Humanity has had at times\nevidences of the results of this teaching which are not, one may fairly\nsay, of a kind to commend themselves to any person possessed of a\nmoderately kindly, not to say of a Christian, disposition. Fortunately,\nor unfortunately, we have the opportunity of studying the experiment in\nactual operation in a race which, of course in entire ignorance of the\nfact, is actually putting into practice the teachings of Natural\nSelection, though it must be admitted that the practice has not been\nsuccessful, nor does it look like being successful, in raising that race\nabove the very lowest rung of the ladder of civilisation. Captain\nWhiffen[19] has given a very complete and a very interesting account of\nthe peoples whom he met with during his wanderings in the regions\nindicated by the title of his book. And he tells us that \"the survival\nof the most fit is the very real and the very stern rule of life in the\nAmazonian forests. From birth to death it rules the Indians' life and\nphilosophy. To help to preserve the unfit would often be to prejudice\nthe chances of the fit. There are no arm-chair sentimentalists to oppose\nthis very practical consideration. The Indian judges it by his standard\nof common sense: why live a life that has ceased to be worth living when\nthere is no bugbear of a hell to make one cling to the most miserable of\nexistences rather than risk greater misery?\" Let us now see the kind of\nlife which the author, freed himself no doubt from \"the bugbear of\nhell,\" considers eminently sensible--the kind of life of which only an\n\"arm-chair sentimentalist\" would disapprove; a kind of life, it may be\nadded, which will appear to most ordinarily minded people as being one\nof selfishness raised to its highest power.\n\nTo begin with the earliest event in life. If a child, on its appearance\nin the world, appears to be in any way defective, its mother quietly\nkills it and deposits its body in the forest. If the mother dies in\nchildbirth the child, unless someone takes pity on it and adopts it, is\nkilled by the father, who, it may be presumed, is indisposed to take the\ntrouble, perhaps indeed incapable of doing so, of rearing the motherless\nbabe. That the child, in any case, immediately after birth, is plunged\ninto cold water, is not perhaps a conscious method of eliminating the\nweak, though it must operate in that direction. At a later period of\nlife should any disease believed to be infectious break out in a tribe,\n\"those attacked by it are immediately left, even by their closest\nrelatives, the house is abandoned, and possibly even burnt. Such\nderelict houses are no uncommon sight in the forest, grimly desolate\nmementoes of possible tragedies.\" When a person becomes insane, he is\nfirst of all exorcised by the medicine man, and if that fails is put to\ndeath by poison by the same functionary. The sick are dealt with on\nsimilar lines, unless there is or seems to be a probability of speedy\nrecovery. \"Cases of chronic illness meet with no sympathy from the\nIndians. A man who cannot hunt or fight is regarded as useless, he is\nmerely a burden on the community.\" Under these circumstances he is\neither left at home untended or hunted out into the bush to die, or his\nend is accelerated by the medicine man. The same fate awaits the aged,\nunless they seem to be of value to the tribe on account of their wisdom\nand experience.\n\nAll these things placed together give us a perfect picture of life under\nNatural Selection, and having studied it we may fairly ask whether such\na rule of life is one under which any one of us would like to live. In\nevery respect it is the antipodes of the Christian rule of life, and of\nthat rule of life which civilised countries, whether in fact Christian\nor not, have derived from Christianity and still practise. The\nnon-Christian rule of the Indians is one under which might is right and\nno real individual liberty exists, all personal rights being sacrificed\nto the supposed needs and benefit of the community.\n\nSo much from the point of view of Natural Selection, but it would appear\nthat those who have given up that factor as of anything but a very minor\nvalue, if even that, have also their rule of life founded on their\ninterpretation of Nature. Thus Professor Bateson, the great exponent of\nMendel's doctrines, who has told us in his Presidential Address to the\nBritish Association that we must think much less highly of Natural\nSelection than some would have us do, has, as has been set forth in the\nprevious section of this essay, his opinion as to the rule of life which\nwe should follow.\n\nProfessor Conklyn, an American enthusiast for extreme eugenistic views,\nhas also set down in print his ideas as to the lines on which our lives\nare to be run under a scientific domination, and these are to be dealt\nwith in another article.[20] His scheme entails a forcible visit, not,\nit may be supposed, to the Altar, but to the Registry Office, for all\npersons held to be fit to perpetuate the race, and forcible restraint,\nwhether by imprisonment or by sterilisation, for all others.\n\nThe first thing which all these essays towards a scientific conduct of\nlife reveal is a total want of perspective, for they proceed on the\nhypothesis--which no doubt their authors would defend--that this world\nand its concerns are everything, and that the intellectual and physical\nimprovement of the human race by any measures, however harsh, is the\n\"one thing needful.\" But beyond this the persons who hold such views\nseem to have entirely overlooked the fact that their proposed State\nwould be one conducted on principles of the bitterest and most galling\nslavery imaginable by the mind of man, a form of slavery that never\ncould persist if for a moment it be conceded that it could ever come\ninto operation. The fact is that the whole thing is ludicrous when\nlooked at from the point of view of common sense, but how few take the\ntrouble to contemplate these schemes as they would be in operation! Were\nthey thus to contemplate them, they would see that, apart altogether\nfrom any religious considerations, they are wholly impossible, even from\na purely political point of view. That such ideas are intolerable to\nCatholic minds, indeed to any Christian mind, goes without saying.\n\nDriesch (_Science and Philosophy of the Organism_, vol. ii., p. 358) has\npointed out very clearly that \"the mechanical theory of life is\nincompatible with morality,\" and that it is impossible to feel \"morally\"\ntowards other individuals if one knows that they are machines and\nnothing more. Again, Professor Henslow (in _Present Day Rationalism\nCritically Examined_, p. 253) very pertinently asks those who discard\nall religious considerations and claim to rely for guidance on the\nlessons of Nature, \"If you have no taste for virtue, why be virtuous at\nall, so long as you do not violate the laws of the land?\"\n\nYet, in the face of these surely obvious facts, we find persons making\nsuch absurd claims as that made in a recent book by Rignano, an Italian\nwriter (_Essays in Scientific Synthesis_, 1917). It is not often that\none meets a book so full of philosophical fallacies as this. \"We are\ncertain of one fact,\" he says, \"that the only organ actually brought\ninto play to fight immorality is the organ of the collective conscience\nand not the religious organ.\" I suppose no more ludicrously inaccurate\nremark ever was set down in print; for, to begin with, the \"collective\nconscience,\" whatever that may be, does not exist in Nature, _teste_ the\nfarmyard and the fowl-run; and again, whatever force is connoted by\nthose words must have been set agoing--by what? By Nature? Oh, most\nemphatically No! Nature has no law against immorality; there is no\nCategorical Imperative in Nature commanding us to be chaste or kindly or\nconsiderate or even just. We must go elsewhere if we are to look for\nteaching in the virtues. That is the fact that we must keep clearly\nbefore our minds when endeavouring to estimate at their proper value the\nnostrums of writers such as those with whose works we have been dealing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n  [Footnote 1: Two addresses were delivered in 1914--one in\n  Melbourne, the other in Sydney. These will be referred to in\n  this article as M. & S.]\n\n  [Footnote 2: Sir Oliver Lodge: _Continuity_, p. 90.]\n\n  [Footnote 3: _Materials for the Study of Variation_, London,\n  1894.]\n\n  [Footnote 4: _The History and Theory of Vitalism_, p. 140.]\n\n  [Footnote 5: _Unconscious Memory._ Fifield. 1910.]\n\n  [Footnote 6: Those who desire further information may be\n  referred to _A Century of Scientific Thought_, by the present\n  writer. Burns & Oates.]\n\n  [Footnote 7: _Op. cit._, pp. 137-8.]\n\n  [Footnote 8: _The Philosophy of Biology_, p. 64.]\n\n  [Footnote 9: In an article in the volume _Darwin and Modern\n  Science_, p. 100.]\n\n  [Footnote 10: _Op. cit._, p. 319.]\n\n  [Footnote 11: _Op. cit._, pp. 238-9.]\n\n  [Footnote 12: See the discussion on this subject in Wasmann's\n  _The Problem of Evolution_.]\n\n  [Footnote 13: R. R. Marett, Presidential Address to Folk-Lore\n  Society, 1915. _Folk-Lore_, vol. xxvii., pp. 1-14.]\n\n  [Footnote 14: _The Kingdom of Man._ London: Constable & Co.\n  1907.]\n\n  [Footnote 15: Lankester, _op. cit._, p. 26.]\n\n  [Footnote 16: _Op. cit._, pp. 21-27.]\n\n  [Footnote 17: _My Life with the Eskimo_ (1913), p. 188.]\n\n  [Footnote 18: For a discussion of this question, see _Bernhardi\n  and Creation_, by Sir James Crichton-Browne, F.R.S. Glasgow:\n  James Maclehose & Sons. 1916.]\n\n  [Footnote 19: _The Northwest Amazons._ London: Constable & Co.\n  1915.]\n\n  [Footnote 20: _Science and the War_, p. 120.]\n\n\n\n\nII. THEOPHOBIA AND NEMESIS\n\n\nSec. 1. THEOPHOBIA: ITS CAUSE\n\n_Initium sapientiae timor Domini_; no doubt, but such fear is only the\nbeginning, and is not the kind of fear--which also exists--a fear which\nengenders an actual revulsion against the idea of God.\n\nIt is to this kind of fear which the eminent Jesuit writer Wasmann\nalludes when he says that \"in many scientific circles there is an\nabsolute _Theophobia_, a dread of the Creator. I can only regret this,\"\nhe continues, \"because I believe that it is due chiefly to a defective\nknowledge of Christian philosophy and theology.\"\n\nThat he is entirely right as to the existence of this feeling there can\nbe no doubt; no one can read at all widely in scientific literature\nwithout becoming aware of it. Contrary to all the tenets of science\nthere is even a bias against any such idea as that of a Creator, though\nscience is supposed to confront all problems without bias of any kind. I\nneed not cite instances of this feeling; I have dealt with it elsewhere.\nWe may take it for granted, and proceed to look for an explanation for\nthe phenomenon. Wasmann attributes it to ignorance, and he is, I feel\nsure, right; but let us examine the matter a little more closely. Why\nshould persons--even if ignorant--have the bias which some obviously\npresent against the idea of a God? Why should they wish to think that\nthere is no such Being, no future existence, nothing higher than Nature?\nSome persons maintain that precedent to a denial of God there must be a\nmoral failure. That I am sure is quite wrong. I should be far from\nsaying that in some materialists there is not a considerable weakening\nof moral fibre, or perhaps it would be better put, a distortion of moral\nvision, as evidenced by many of the statements and proposals of\neugenists, for example, and by the political nostrums of some who wrest\nscience to a purpose for which it was not intended. This no doubt is\ntrue, but it is not quite the argument with which I am now dealing, and\nthat argument, if it implies moral failure in the persons concerned, has\nlittle if any genuine foundation in fact. Mr. Devas, in that very\nremarkable book, _The Key to the World's Progress_, gives us the useful\nphrase \"post-Christians.\" These people are really pagans living in the\nChristian era, retaining many of the excellent qualities which they owe\nneither to Nature nor to paganism, but to the inheritance--perhaps\ninvoluntary and unrecognised--of the influences of Christianity. Many of\nthese people are kind, benevolent, scrupulously moral. They have not\nlearned to be such from Nature, for Nature teaches no such lessons. Nor\nhave they learnt them from paganism, for these are not pagan virtues.\nThey are an inheritance from Christianity. Those, therefore, who build\narguments as to the needlessness of religion on the foundation that\npersons without any belief in God do exhibit all the moral virtues,\nbuild on sand. At any rate the answer to the question which we are\ndiscussing is not to be found in this direction.\n\nOthers again will perhaps maintain the thesis that fashion has a great\ndeal to do with this. It is not fashionable to believe in God, or at\nleast it was not. It was highly fashionable to call oneself an agnostic;\nperhaps it is not quite so much the vogue now as it was. No doubt there\nis something in this, though not very much. It is much easier to go with\nthe tide than against it, and there are scientific tides as truly as\nthere are tides in the fashion of dress. There was a Weismann tide, now\nnearly at dead water; there was an anti-vitalistic tide, now ebbing\nfast. When these were in full flow it was a hazardous thing for a young\nman who had to make his own way in the scientific world to swim against\neither or both of them. Fashions change, and fashion is not so set\nagainst the idea of a God as it was. The materialistic tide is \"going\nout,\" and we shall see that there is some truth in the view which holds\nthat the incoming tide is largely that of occultism, a thing disliked\nand despised--and indeed with some reason--by the materialistic school\neven more than it dislikes and despises theistic opinions.\n\nFashion, however, is not in any way a complete answer to the question we\nare proposing to ourselves, nor is the unquestionable fact that\nscientific men have a strong objection to putting their trust in\nanything which cannot be subjected either to scientific examination or\nto experiment. In this attitude there is more than a germ of truth.\n\"Occam's razor\" is as valuable an implement to-day as it ever was, and\neveryone will admit that we must exhaust all known causes before we\nproceed to postulate a new one.\n\nWe have gone beyond the day of the absurd statement that thought (which\nis of course unextended) is as much a secretion of the brain as bile\n(which, equally of course, is extended) is of the liver. No one nowadays\nwould commit himself to such a statement, and men in general would be\nchary of urging that we should not believe anything which we cannot\nunderstand. I have myself heard a distinguished man of science of his\nday--he is dead this quarter of a century--make that statement in\npublic, wholly ignoring the fact that any branch of science which we may\npursue will supply us with a hundred problems we can neither understand\nnor explain, yet the factors of which we are bound to admit. But there\nis undoubtedly a dislike to accepting anything which cannot be proved by\nscientific means, and a tendency to describe as \"mysticism\"--a terrible\nand damning term to apply to anything, so its employers think!--any\nexplanation which postulates something more in the universe than\noperations of a physical and chemical character.\n\nMy own opinion is that the state of things which we are considering\nfinds its explanation in history, and I propose to devote a short space\nto developing this view. Of course we might, and in some ways should,\ngo back to the Reformation and to the destruction of religion which then\ntook place. Let us, however, pass from that period to a time some\nhundred and fifty years ago and commence our investigations there, and\nin carrying them out I propose to make considerable use of the novels of\ndifferent periods.\n\nIt is a truism that very little but the dry bones of history can be\nlearnt from histories.\n\nNowadays people are sick of reading about more or less immoral monarchs,\nand more or less corrupt politicians, and it may be suspected that most\nof us have had our bellyful of wars now that the recent contest has come\nto an end. What one really wants to learn from history is how the\nordinary folk, like ourselves, were getting on; what their ideas were;\nhow the world wagged for them. Such information we are much more likely\nto get from memoirs and, since such works have been published, from\nnovels. The novelist is not to be supposed to be committed to acceptance\nof all the remarks put into the mouths of his characters, but, if he is\nof the second, not to say the first flight (and, if he is not, he is not\nworth quoting), his characters and the general tone of his book will not\nbe out of touch with the times to which they belong. Since the novel\ncame into existence as something more than an occasional rarity, it is\nthe novelists and not the players who are \"the abstract and brief\nchronicles of the times,\" and it is to them that we shall apply for some\nof the information we desire.\n\nTo commence with the Georgian period, it is not too much to say that\nanything like real religion was scarcely ever at a lower ebb in England.\nThis is not to say that there was an absolute dearth of religion. Law\nwrote his _Serious Call_ during that period, and there are few books of\nits kind which have had a greater and more lasting effect. There were\nothers of like but lesser character than Law, but, on the whole, no one\nwill deny that the clergy of the Established Church (Catholics were, of\ncourse, in the catacombs) and the religion which they represented were\nalmost beneath contempt. Look, for example, at _Esmond_, the typical\nnovel of its period. Is there a single clergyman in it who is not an\nobject of contempt, with the sole exception of the Jesuit, who, though a\ngood deal of the stage variety, at least gains a measure of the reader's\nsympathy and respect? Thackeray was not himself a Georgian, it may be\nurged. That of course is true, but no one that knows Thackeray and knows\nalso Georgian literature will deny that he was saturated with it and\nunderstood the period with which his book dealt better perhaps than\nthose who lived in it themselves. But examine the novelists of the\nperiod; what about Fielding? Parson Adams is respectable and lovable,\nbut the general average of parson and religion is certainly about as low\nas it can be. Fielding was not a religious man. Possibly, but what then\nof Richardson? We do not find religion at a very high level there; can\nanything well be more degraded than the figure cut by Mr. Williams in\n_Pamela_, for example--the miserable curate upon whom the heroine calls\nfor help in her distress? But apart from that, look at the whole\natmosphere of the book. Why, the moral is that if you resist the immoral\nonslaughts of your master long enough he will give in and marry you, and\nyou will be applauded for your successful strategy by all the\ncountryside. Such is the book which all agreed to praise as an example\nof all that a book ought to be from the point of view of virtue.\n\nIt will be admitted by all conversant with the facts that religion could\nhardly have been at a lower ebb than it was when what is known as the\nEvangelical Movement came to trouble the placid, if stagnant and turbid,\npool of the Established Church. Of course it did not transform the\nChurch entirely. Read Miss Austen's novels: the most perfect pictures of\nlife ever written. There are, I suppose, some half-dozen clergymen,\npleasant and unpleasant, depicted in them, and we may be sure that they\nfairly well represent the typical average country parson of the period.\nWhatever they may otherwise be, they all agree in one point, namely in\nthe complete absence of any such thing as a trace of spirituality. But\nin the early nineteenth-century Evangelicanism--specially that terrible\nvariety Calvinism--was the dominant factor where religion really\nprevailed as a living influence; and it is to its influence, I firmly\nbelieve, that we may attribute the genuine detestation of religion which\nwas so marked a feature of a part of the Victorian and most of the\nsucceeding time. I am not, of course, forgetting the Oxford Movement,\nbut, important as that was and is, in its earlier years it was almost\nentirely confined to clerical circles, exercising comparatively little\ninfluence on the laity and practically none at all on that great middle\nclass which had been so much affected by the Wesleys, Whitefield, Scott,\nNewton, and the other pundits of Evangelicanism. Take the characteristic\nnovel of the movement, if novel it should be called, Newman's _Loss and\nGain_: I do not remember a single male character in it who is not in\nHoly Orders or on the way thereto. Hence, so far as religious influences\nare concerned, it is to the Evangelical Movement that we have to look.\nNow, though in my opinion it was the parent of many evils, there is no\ndoubt that there was in it real fervour; intense devotion; a genuine\ndesire to know and do God's will; a burning love for our Lord; coupled\nwith all which were the most distorted and distorting ideas of what was\nand what was not sin ever conceived by any brain. Of this creed I can\nspeak from personal knowledge, for I was brought up in it and know it\nfrom bitter experience.\n\nThe exponents of these views were never tired of instilling into their\npupils the need for conversion, which was supposed to be a sudden\noperation. I have heard persons name the exact moment by the clock and\nthe day on which theirs took place, and it was often effected by a\nsingle text. I have seen the Bible of an eminent leader in this line\nwhich contains a number of texts painted round with colours, each of\nwhich was associated with the conversion of some particular individual.\nThe process was supposed to be effected by the \"acceptance of Christ,\"\nand though it was said to be free to all, it was clear to some at least\nof those who quite earnestly and really desired it, that, however ardent\ntheir desires, they could not secure their realisation. One was supposed\nto know in some mysterious manner that one was converted; the operation\nwas permanent in its character; it could not be repeated; once\nthoroughly effected the converted person neither wished to sin nor\nreally did sin. If anyone supposed to have been converted did relapse\ninto evil ways, then he never had really been converted, but only seemed\nto have been. I have heard this circular form of argument urged most\nstrongly by those who were (by constitution apparently) absolutely\nunable to see the illogical position which they were taking up. A\nfurther, and the most awful, part of the teaching was that however much\none desired to be converted, and however earnestly one prayed for it, if\none died without it damnation was certain. Lastly there was the\nencouraging thought that everything done prior to conversion was equally\nwithout merit; in fact, one might almost say, equally evil. These things\nwere dinned into the heads of the young, in season and out of season; is\nit any wonder that so many of them grew up to hate religion? I remember\nmyself the positive terror with which I went out even to minor\nentertainments, because I knew that in all probability close\ninterrogation would be made as to my spiritual condition.\n\nLet me be reminiscent and recall one case. I was a boy at school and\nspending my Easter vacation away from home and with friends. It was my\nlot to have to dine one night with an old friend of my father's, a\nperson of some distinction, who having, I believe, been a _viveur_ in\nhis youth, had in later years embraced the most ferocious type of\nEvangelicanism. When the ladies had retired I was left alone with this\nformidable person, whom I eyed much as a rabbit eyes a snake into whose\ncage he has been introduced. Nor were my fears groundless, for no sooner\nwas the room empty than he peremptorily demanded of me whether I was\nsaved. On hearing my trembling but perfectly truthful reply that I\nreally did not know, he struck the table with his fist (I can see the\nwhole thing quite plainly to-day, though it is five-and-forty years\nago), exclaiming, \"Then you are a fool, and if you were to die to-night\nyou most certainly would be damned.\" I ask those who were brought up in\na more kindly and more rational scheme of Christianity whether it is any\nwonder that those whose youth was spent in these gloomy shades should\nwelcome the thought that there was no such being as a God?\n\nAssociated with this gloomy creed a new series of sins was invented, as\nif there were not enough already in the world. It was sinful to dance,\neven under the most domestic and proper circumstances. It was a sin to\nplay cards, even when there was no money on the game. It was a sin to\ngo to the theatre, even to behold the most inspiring and instructive\nplays. It was even held by some, as we shall see, that the writing of\nstories or works of imagination was sinful. I once heard a professor of\nthis creed express the doubt whether Shakespeare had not, on the whole,\ndone much more harm than good, and state that he himself would not allow\nthe works of Dickens to occupy a place in a hospital library, from\nwhich, as a matter of fact--for on this point the discussion had\narisen--they had been excluded by the then chaplain of the institution,\na man of like views. In fact, the idea of God which was presented to the\nyouth of that period and brought up under such influences was--I do not\nsay wilfully--that of a kind of super-policeman: a hard-hearted\npoliceman, with an exaggerated code of misdoings, forever waiting round\na corner to pounce on evil-doers, and, one was obliged to think,\napparently almost pleased at the opportunity of catching them. It need\nnot be said that no disrespect is intended in this. It is a simple and\ntruthful statement of the kind of impression made upon one person by the\nteachings of that age and school. Is it any wonder that persons brought\nup in such a creed should experience a feeling of relief on learning\nthat there was no God, no sin, no punishment? Add to this the terrors of\nthe exaggerated Sabbatarianism of the period. What was the Sunday\nprogramme? Two lengthy sessions of Family Prayers; two attendances--each\nlasting at least an hour and a quarter--on services in church; one,\nsometimes two, hours of Sunday School; no books but those of a religious\ncharacter; no amusements of any kind even for the very young, unless the\nputting together of a dissected map of Palestine could be called an\namusement; what a method of rendering Sunday attractive to the young!\n\nIs it any wonder that those brought up on such a plan abandoned, with a\nsigh of relief, all religious exercises when at last they were able to\ndo so? I notice that Mr. Belfort Bax, in his _Reminiscences of a Mid and\nLate Victorian_, alludes to this matter, saying that, \"The most cruel of\nall the results of mid-Victorian religion was, perhaps, the rigid\nenforcement of the most drastic Sabbatarianism. The horror of the tedium\nof Sunday infected more or less the whole of the latter portion of the\nweek.\" _Experto crede!_ He says further, dealing with the 'fifties, that\n\"the intellectual possibilities of the English people were then stunted\nand cramped by the influence of the dogmatic Calvinistic theology which\nwas the basis of its traditional sentiment;\"--it is exactly the point\nwhich I am trying to make.\n\nWe may now examine two instances of the kind of teaching with which I am\ndealing and its results. The first is that of the poet Cowper, and\nanyone who takes the trouble to read his life as written by Southey will\nfind the whole piteous tale fully drawn out. Southey hated the Catholic\nChurch, of which, by the way, he knew absolutely nothing, but he had\nsufficient sense to reject the teachings of Calvinism. Cowper was at\ntimes insane and at other times of anything but a well-balanced mind,\nand he was just the kind of man who never ought to have been brought\nunder the influences to which he was subjected. His principal adviser\nwas the Rev. John Newton, a well-known Calvinistic clergyman of the\nChurch of England. He must have been a man of compelling character, for\nhe it was who brought the Rev. Thomas Scott, Rector of Aston Sandford,\nout of Socinianism, which, though a minister of the Church of England,\nhe professed, into the Calvinistic view of things, as Scott himself\ntells us in his book _The Force of Truth_; and it must not be forgotten\nthat it was to the writings of this same Scott that Newman tells us (in\nhis _Apologia_) that he owed his very soul. Newton, like many of his\nfellows, had no sort of doubt as to his right to act as a director of\nsouls, nor of his profound knowledge of how they should be dealt with.\nYet it is to be remembered that, whilst the Catholic priest is obliged\nto undergo a long and careful training before he is permitted to take up\nthis perilous task, Newton and those of his kind undertook it without\nany training whatever. Cowper, as everybody knows, was carefully and\nkindly tended by Mrs. Unwin, a woman a good deal older than himself,\nagainst whose character no word of reproach was ever uttered, the widow\nof an old friend of the poet. Newton wanted to drive Mrs. Unwin out of\nhis house, but here at least Cowper rebelled and showed his very just\nannoyance, Newton actually urged Cowper to abandon the task of\ntranslating Homer, a labour undertaken to distract his poor sick mind\nfrom thinking of itself, because such work, not being of a religious\ncharacter, partook of the nature of sin. It is no wonder that such a\nrule of life had not infrequently the most distressing consequences.\nNewton himself admits that his preaching had the reputation of driving\npeople into lunacy. In a letter asking that steps may be taken to remove\none poor victim to an asylum he says: \"I hope the poor girl is not\nwithout some concern for her soul; and, indeed, I believe a concern of\nthis kind was the beginning of her disorder. I believe,\" he continues,\n\"my name is up about the county for preaching people mad ... whatever\nmay be the immediate cause, I suppose we have near a dozen, in different\ndegrees, disordered in their heads, and most of them I believe truly\ngracious people.\"\n\nLet us turn to the other example which I propose to select, that given\nby Mr. Gosse in his truly remarkable work _Father and Son_, one of the\nmost faithful pictures of life ever written. The first instance shall be\nan extract from the diary of the mother, obviously a woman of great\npower and gifts if she had been given an opportunity of displaying them.\n\"When I was a very little child,\" she writes, \"I used to amuse myself\nand my brothers with inventing stories such as I had read. Having, as I\nsuppose, naturally a restless mind and busy imagination, this soon\nbecame the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately my brothers were\nalways fond of encouraging this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my\nmaid, a still greater tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it,\nuntil Miss Shore\" (a Calvinistic governess), \"finding it out, lectured\nme severely, and told me it was wicked. From that time forth I\nconsidered that to invent a story of any kind was a sin. But the desire\nto do so was too deeply rooted in my affections to be resisted in my own\nstrength,\" (she was at this time nine years of age), \"and unfortunately\nI knew neither my corruption nor my weakness, nor did I know where to\ngain strength. The longing to invent stories grew with a violence;\neverything I heard or read became food for my distemper. The simplicity\nof truth was not sufficient for me; I must needs embroider imagination\nupon it, and the folly, vanity and wickedness which disgraced my heart,\nare more than I am able to express. Even now (at the age of\ntwenty-nine), though watched, prayed and striven against, this is still\nthe sin which most easily besets me. It has hindered my prayers and\nprevented my improvement, and therefore has humbled me very much.\" It is\nnarrated of the well-known Father Healy that a young lady having\nconsulted him as to the sin of vanity, she feeling convinced, when she\nlooked in her glass, that she was a very pretty girl, was answered by\nhim, \"My child, that is not a sin; it is a mistake!\" It wanted some wise\nadviser to make the same remark to this poor tortured and deluded woman.\n\nIllness under this code was always a punishment sent from heaven, as,\nindeed, it may be; but, \"if anyone was ill it showed that 'the Lord's\nhand was extended in chastisement,' and much prayer was poured forth in\norder that it might be explained to the sufferer, or to his relations,\nin what he or they had sinned. People would, for instance, go on living\nover a cesspool, working themselves up into an agony to discover how\nthey had incurred the displeasure of the Lord, but never moving away.\"\nOne last instance, the most remarkable of all, and we may leave this\nbook. It need hardly be said that a father of the kind depicted in this\nbook would have a holy horror of the Catholic Church, and he had. He\n\"welcomed any social disorder in any part of Italy, as likely to be\nannoying to the Papacy.\" He \"celebrated the announcement in the\nnewspapers of a considerable emigration from the Papal dominions, by\nrejoicing at this outcrowding of many, throughout the harlot's domain,\nfrom her sin and her plagues,\" and he even carried his hatred so far as\nto denounce the keeping of Christmas, which to him was nothing less than\nan act of idolatry.\n\nOn a certain Christmas Day, the servants, greatly daring, disobeyed the\norder of their master and actually had the audacity to make a small\nplum-pudding for themselves. Actuated by pity, no doubt, and by a\nfeeling of kindness towards a small boy deprived of all the joys of the\nseason, they pressed a slice of this pudding upon the son, who\nsuccumbed--very naturally--to the temptation. Shortly after, however,\nbeing afflicted by a stomach-ache, remorse came upon him and he rushed\nto his father, exclaiming: \"Oh! papa, papa, I have eaten of flesh\noffered to idols!\" When the father learned what had happened, he sternly\nsaid, \"Where is the accursed thing?\" Having heard that it was on the\nkitchen table, \"he took me by the hand, and ran with me into the midst\nof the startled servants, seized what remained of the pudding, and with\nthe plate in one hand and me still tight in the other, ran till we\nreached the dust-heap, where he flung the idolatrous confectionery on to\nthe middle of the ashes, and then raked it deep down into the mass. The\nsuddenness, the velocity of this extraordinary act, made an impression\non my memory which nothing will ever efface.\" Such is a plain\nunvarnished account of the kind of way in which numbers of people were\nbrought up in the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. Can it be\nwondered that those who had such a childhood should grow up with an\nabsolute horror of the Person in Whose name such things--absurdities\nwhen not positive crimes--were perpetrated? I firmly believe that these\nwholly false ideas of God and of sin have had more to do with the spread\nof materialism than many will perhaps be disposed to admit. Educated\npeople, especially those trained in scientific methods, demand a certain\ncommon sense and sobriety in their beliefs. If they are brought up to\nbelieve that a grievous sin is committed when they invent an innocent\nstory; when they go to a theatre or to a dance, or play a game of cards;\nif they have never known the demands of real Christianity as put\nforward by the Catholic Church, is it likely that they will cleave to a\nfaith which apparently engenders such absurdities as the Christmas\npudding episode? It is, indeed, as Father Wasmann says, a thousand\npities that the reasonableness, the logic, the dignity of the Catholic\nreligion should remain for ever hidden from the eyes and minds of many\nwho so often are as they are, because they were brought up as they were.\nIn all these things we find the key to another problem. In another essay\nin this volume I have called attention to the glad intelligence, as it\nseems to a certain school of writers, that we are freed from the\n\"bugbear of sin,\" as one of them puts it; able to enjoy ourselves\nwithout any thoughts of that kind.\n\nNow I cannot but believe that such writers are thinking of the bugbear\nof artificial sins invented by the professors of a gloomy creed of\nreligion. It is not to be supposed that any serious writer--and those to\nwhom I allude are eminently such--would speak or write with pleasure and\nsatisfaction of escaping from the bugbear of sins against morality or\nagainst one's neighbour; from the bugbear of dishonesty or theft; of\ntaking away a person's character; of running away with his wife. I am\nconvinced that it is the invented crimes of card-playing, theatre-going,\nand the like to which they are alluding: it could not surely be\notherwise; and that makes it all the more unfortunate that before\nmisusing a technical term like the word \"sin,\" and thus perhaps\nmisleading some young and ardent mind, such writers could not follow\nFather Wasmann's advice and study some simple manual of Catholic ethics,\nfrom which they would learn the real doctrine of Christianity and would\ndiscover how very different a thing it is and how very much more\nreasonable than the distorted caricature which we have been studying.\n\n\nSec. 2. THEOPHOBIA: ITS NEMESIS\n\nWhether my view as to the cause, or one of the causes, is right or not,\nthe fact remains that by the mid-Victorian period England had fallen to\na very large extent a prey to materialism. Many people attribute the\nsudden onslaught of this to the publication of _The Origin of Species_\nand the controversies of the foolish which followed thereon. Samuel\nButler, that brilliant writer who has not even yet come into his own,\nsums up in his novel _The Way of All Flesh_ (and it may incidentally be\nremarked, in himself) most of the characteristics of the day. Many a\nparsonage home like that of the Rev. Theobald Pontifex existed in those\ndays, and more than one Ernest Pontifex emerged from them. Now in this\nbook Butler states that \"the year 1858 was the last of a term during\nwhich the peace of the Church of England was singularly unbroken,\" and\nthere no doubt he is right; \"The Evangelical Movement ... had become\nalmost a matter of ancient history. Tractarianism had subsided into a\ntenth-day's wonder; it was at work, but it was not noisy.\" Then he says\nthe calm was broken by the publication of three books: _Essays and\nReviews_, _The Origin of Species_, _Criticisms on the Pentateuch_ by\nColenso. Few persons probably now remember the first and the last of\nthese books; the fame of the second is likely to last long.\n\nWhether again Butler is right in his idea as to the causes or not, as to\nthe fact there can be no doubt. We have arrived at a period when the\nprevalent opinion amongst the intellectual classes was that\nreligion--belief in anything which could not be fully understood--was\nimpossible once one began to think seriously about it. Those who did not\nreally look into such questions might go on considering themselves to\nbelieve in revelation, but the moment that a man seriously tackled the\nsubject, his religion was bound to go, just as that of Ernest Pontifex\ndid at the end of five minutes' conversation with an atheistic\nshoemaker.[21] Agnosticism and materialism were in the air, and remained\nthe dominant features for quite a number of years. There were those who\ndeplored the loss of their faith such as it had been. Huxley obviously\ndid; and Romanes, who afterwards returned to the Church of England,\nconfessedly did. Such persons, and there were many of them, honestly\nwere unable to believe, and said so. A great deal of this was due to the\nattitude of popular science at that time. It was in a hot fit, and was\ngoing to explain everything, if not to-day, at least to-morrow. Now, as\nSir Oliver Lodge told us before the war, in his book _Continuity_, we\nare in a cold fit and we seem only to know that nothing can be known.\nSir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known as the creator of _Sherlock Holmes_,\ntells us in a recent book from which I shall have further to quote (_The\nNew Revelation_, Hodder and Stoughton, 1918): \"When I had finished my\nmedical education in 1882, I found myself, like many young medical men,\na convinced materialist as regards our personal destiny.\" With the facts\ncontained in this statement I fully agree. The date in question is\nalmost exactly that at which I also became a qualified medical man, and\nI, and I fancy most of my generation, believed ourselves to be agnostics\nif not atheists. It was the atmosphere of the time, and so strong as\nwith difficulty to be resisted by those who resorted to the\nUniversities. The point which I want to make is that during the latter\npart of the Victorian period we had come to a generation of\nintellectuals practically devoid of religion and followed in that\nrespect by that always larger portion of any generation which, not\nhaving brains to think for itself, yet desiring to follow the\nintellectual _motif_ of the day, adopts whatever is the fashionable\nattitude for the moment towards unseen things. Yesterday it was blank\nnegation; to-day it tends, as we shall see, to be spiritualism;\nto-morrow it might be earnest faith: let us hope so. And as to\nCalvinism, all this was _post hoc_ of course; _propter hoc_ also as I\nthink.\n\nWhat followed? That is what we now have to consider. The first thing\nwhich happened was the very natural discovery that science cannot\nexplain everything; has in fact a strictly limited range of country to\ndeal with. This discovery began to sap the foundations of materialism.\nThen there came the further discovery that all was not well, as so many\nsupposed that it would be, under a scheme of life divorced from all\nconnection with religion. Mr. Lucas, who has given the world many\npleasant books, none of them with any obvious bias in favour of\nreligion, in _Over Bemertons_ (one of the most pleasant) makes one of\nhis characters, _Mr. Dabney_, deplore the loss of the seriousness of the\nVictorian era: \"We believe only in pleasure and success; our one ideal\nis getting wealth.\" Parenthetically, is not that just what might be\nexpected? If there is really nothing but this world, what better can we\nseek than as much pleasure as we can get out of it? _Over Bemertons_ was\nfirst published in 1908, and the remedy which _Mr. Dabney_ then\nsuggested, with a really curious prophetical insight, has just been\nvigorously applied. That remedy was \"War, nothing more or less. A bloody\nwar--not a punitive expedition or 'a sort of a war'\" (he quoted these\nwords with white fury) \"'that might get us right again.' 'At great\ncost,' I said. 'A surgical operation,' he replied, 'if the only means\nof saving life, cannot be called expensive.'\"\n\nFinally the discovery was made that mankind will not for long be content\nto do altogether without religion; a need for something more than bread\nalone being ingrained in his nature. Thus even the professedly\nmaterialistic societies try to afford something in the way of religious\nexercises. I have recently seen a notice of one of the so-called Ethical\nSocieties in which the members (at their meetings, I take it) are\n\"requested to silently meditate for five minutes on the good life.\"[22]\nIt would seem to be quite as beneficial and more practical to meditate\non split infinitives. A substitute for religion has to be found; what is\nit to be? In the years before the war Mr. Masefield published a very\ninteresting book called _Multitude and Solitude_, which narrates the\ntrials and troubles of two young Englishmen who make a perilous journey\nto Africa in search of the secret of the sleeping-sickness. In all their\ntrials they never seem to have thought of prayer, in which it may be\nassumed they did not believe, but when they returned to England it\noccurred to one of them that there was something wanting in their life,\nand he propounded to his friend the view that \"the world is just coming\nto see that science is not a substitute for religion,\" which is one of\nthe things urged in this paper. He then proceeded to the rather\nstartling conclusion that science _is_ \"religion of a very deep and\naustere kind.\" One is reminded of a well-known passage in the Bible:\n\"_Inveni et aram in qua scriptum erat_ IGNOTO DEO.\" To set up science as\nan \"unknown God\" seems a curious choice, even more curious than the\nchoice of humanity, which--pitiable object as it is--was at least made\nin the image of God. Not to pile up instance upon instance, let us\ncontent ourselves with remembering that Mr. Wells, who in his earlier\nnovels had certainly not displayed any marked affection for religion, in\nthe last published before the war (_Marriage_) brings his hero face to\nface with the great realities, and makes him exclaim to his wife that he\nmay \"die a Christian yet,\" and urge upon her the need for prayer, if\nonly out into the darkness. Of course, as all the reading world knows,\nsince the war commenced, Mr. Wells has set up his own altar \"IGNOTO\nDEO,\" not with much more satisfactory results than those attained by Mr.\nMasefield. It is an historical fact that times of war have also been\ntimes of religious awakening, and it is natural that they should be so,\nfor even the most careless must be brought to contemplate something more\nthan the day's enjoyment. It is not then wonderful that the terrible war\nwhich has raged with Europe as the cockpit, and practically all the\nnations of the world as participants, should turn the minds of those who\nare in the righting line towards thoughts which in times of peace may\nnever have found entrance there. From all sides one hears that this is\nso, yet here again it is too often the case that an \"unknown God\" is\nsought, and from want of proper direction not always found. In a\nrecently published memoir of one of the many splendid young fellows by\nwhose death the world has been made poorer during this calamitous war,\nthere is this moving passage: \"I know that many hearts are turning\ntowards _something_, but cannot find satisfaction in what the Christian\nsects offer. And many, failing to find what they need, fall back sadly\ninto vague uncertainties and disbelief, as I often do myself.\" We badly\nneed a St. Paul who will say to these and other anxious hearts, \"_Quod\nergo ignorantes colitis, hoc ego annuntio vobis_.\"\n\nHowever, it is much more with those who only \"stand and wait\" than with\nthose who were actually in the trenches that we are concerned; what\nabout the lamentable army of wives and mothers, widows and orphans,\npeople bereft of those they loved or rising every morning in dread of\nthe news which the day might bring forth; what about these and their\nattitude towards the things unseen? That many such have turned to some\ngenuine form of religion is happily beyond dispute, but it is also\nunquestionably true that thousands have turned aside to the attractions\nof spiritualism. A recent article in the Literary Supplement of the\n_Times_ commenced with the statement that \"Among the strange, dismaying\nthings cast up by the tide of war are those traces of primitive\nfatalism, primitive magic, and equivocal divination which are within\ngeneral knowledge.\" The writer of the article in question thinks that\nas we have taken a huge and lamentable step backwards in civilisation,\nwe need not be surprised that we should also have receded in the\ndirection of those primitive instincts to which he calls attention. This\nprocess had, however, begun long before the war.\n\nThe late Dr. Ryder, Provost of the Birmingham Oratory, was a very shrewd\nobserver of public affairs and a very close and dear friend of the\npresent writer. It must be more than twenty years ago since he remarked\nto me that he thought that materialism had shot its bolt and that the\ncoming danger to religion was spiritualism, a subject on which, if I\nremember right, he had written more than one paper. I asked him what led\nhim to that conclusion, and his reply was to ask me whether I had not\nnoticed the great increase in number of the items in second-hand book\ncatalogues--a form of literature to which we were both much\naddicted--under the heading \"OCCULT.\" Since the war, however, there can\nbe no doubt about the fact that spiritualism has made great strides. A\nthousand pieces of evidence prove it. Look, for example, at the enormous\nvogue of _Raymond_, a book of which I say nothing, out of personal\nregard for its author and genuine respect for his honesty and\nfearlessness. But I return to Sir Arthur Doyle's book, and we find him\nassuring us that he is personally \"in touch with thirteen mothers who\nare in correspondence with their dead sons,\" and adds that in only one\nof these cases was the individual concerned with psychic matters before\nthe war. Further, he explains that it was the war which induced him to\ntake an active interest in a subject which had been before no more than\none of passing curiosity. \"In the presence of an agonised world,\" he\nwrites, \"hearing every day of the deaths of the flower of our race in\nthe first promise of their unfulfilled youth, seeing around one the\nwives and mothers who had no clear conception whither their loved one\nhad gone to, I seemed suddenly to see that this subject with which I had\nso long dallied was not merely a study of a force outside the rules of\nscience, but that it really was something tremendous, a breaking down of\nthe walls between the two worlds, a direct undeniable message from\nbeyond, a call of hope and of guidance to the human race at the time of\nits deepest affliction.\" Perhaps it is not wonderful that spiritualism\nshould have won the success which it has, for it offers a good deal to\nthose who can believe in it. It offers definite intercourse with the\ndeparted; positive knowledge as to the existence of a future state, and\neven as to its nature--the last-named intelligence not always very\nattractive. Further, it requires no particular creed and, it would\nappear, no special code of morals; for one of its teachings, I gather,\nis that it does not greatly matter what a man thinks or even does, so\nfar as his future welfare is concerned.\n\nSir A. Doyle's book is the least convincing exposition of spiritualism I\nhave yet read--and I have studied many of them--but it may be taken to\ninclude the latest views on the subject. Amongst the revelations which\nhe gives, there is one purporting to come from a spirit who \"had been a\nCatholic and was still a Catholic, but had not fared better than the\nProtestants; there were Buddhists and Mahommedans in her sphere, but all\nfared alike.\" Another spirit informed Sir A. Doyle that he had been a\nfreethinker, but \"had not suffered in the next life for that reason.\"\nThis is not the occasion, and in no way am I the man, to tackle the\nsubject of spiritualism, but this at least I think may be said, that the\nperson who argues that the whole thing is a fraud and deception does not\nknow what he is talking about. Look at the history of the world--_Quod\nsemper_, _quod ubique_, almost _quod ab omnibus_. The records of early\nmissionaries--Jesuits especially--teem with accounts of the same kind of\nphenomena as we read of in connection with seances to-day, occurring in\nall sorts of places and amongst widely separated races of mankind. We\nhave it in the _Odyssey_; we have it in Cicero and in Pliny; we have it\nin the Bible. All this is not a mere matter of imposition.\n\nIn a very curious book recently published (_Some Revelations as to\n\"Raymond_,\" by a Plain Citizen; London, Kegan Paul), to which some\nattention may now be devoted, the writer, himself a firm believer in\nspiritualism and one obviously in a position to write about it, points\nout that the old term \"magic\" has been relegated to the performances of\nconjurers, and the terminology so altered as to make spiritualism appear\nto be a new gospel, whereas the contrary is the case. \"The impression\nprevailed that civilised people were in presence of a new order of\nphenomena, and were acquiring a new outlook into the regions of the\nUnknown; whereas the truth was that they were merely repeating, under\nnew social conditions and in a new environment, the same experiences\nthat had happened to their ancestors during some thousands of years.\"\nHere I may interject the remark that as far as my reading and knowledge\ngo, no spirit has ever had a good word to say for the Catholic religion.\nWhat that Church thinks about spiritualism has been made quite clear,\nand that is enough for Catholics. Before leaving the Plain Citizen, we\nmust not omit to notice one strange hypothesis of his, all the stranger\nas coming from a professed spiritualist. He maintains--perhaps it would\nbe fairer to say that he lays down as a working hypothesis--the\nfollowing thesis: Spiritualism involves the existence of mediums, and\nmediums for the most part have to make their living by their operations.\nThey will not be averse to making their incomes as large as possible.\nFor the purpose of acquiring information as to the affairs of possible\nclients, they have, so he asserts, an almost Freemasonic Association by\nwhich all sorts of pieces of intelligence concerning persons of\nimportance are collected and disseminated amongst the brotherhood. It\ndid not require much imagination to suppose that the war would add to\nthe number of their clients, whether their claims had real foundation or\nnot; what they wanted above all things was some one of undoubted\nposition who would \"boom the movement,\" in the slang of the day. They\nlaid all their plans to get their man in the author of _Raymond_, and\nthey got him. Such is his thesis for what it is worth.\n\nHowever, it is time to conclude. What I wanted to show was that\nTheophobia was the Nemesis of a dreadful type of Protestantism, and that\nspiritualism was the Nemesis of the materialism associated with that\nTheophobia. There is no need to point out to Catholic readers where the\nremedy lies, and where the real Communion of the saints is to be found.\nThey are not likely to be drawn aside by the \"Lo here!\" of the \"false\nChrists\" whom we were promised and whom we are getting. It is for those\nwho have themselves experienced the consolations of the Catholic\nreligion to do their best, each in his own way, to make known to others\noutside our body what things may be found within.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n  [Footnote 21: An excellent example may be found in Butler's own\n  career. Destined for the ministry of the Church of England\n  (with his own full consent), he was set to teach a class in a\n  Sunday school. Finding that some of his pupils were unbaptized,\n  yet no worse-behaved than the others, and obviously quite\n  ignorant of what baptism meant, he abandoned all belief. His\n  biographer, equally ignorant, in narrating, with approval, this\n  change of opinion, says, \"Paley had produced evidence of\n  Christianity, but none so unmistakable as this to the\n  contrary.\"]\n\n  [Footnote 22: Dr. Johnson once remarked that \"to find a\n  substitution for violated morality was the leading feature in\n  all perversions of religion.\"]\n\n\n\n\nIII. WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE SYSTEM\n\n\nExclusive and long-continued devotion to any special line of study is\nliable to lead to forgetfulness of other, even kindred, lines--almost,\nin extreme cases, to a kind of atrophy of other parts of the mind. There\nis the example of Darwin and his self-confessed loss of the aesthetic\ntastes he once possessed. Nor are scientific studies the only ones to\nproduce such an effect. The amusing satire in _The New Republic_ has,\nperhaps, lost some of its tang now that the prototype of its Professor\nof History is almost forgotten, but it has not lost its point. Lady\nAmbrose tells the tale: \"He said to me in a very solemn voice, 'What a\nterrible defeat that was which we had at Bouvines!' I answered\ntimidly--not thinking we were at war with anyone--that I had seen\nnothing about it in the papers. 'H'm!' he said, giving a sort of grunt\nthat made me feel dreadfully ignorant, 'why, I had an excursus on it\nmyself in the _Archaeological Gazette_ only last week.' And, do you know,\nit turned out that the Battle of Bouvines was fought in the Thirteenth\nCentury, and had, as far as I could make out, something to do with Magna\nCharta.\"\n\nIt is, however, among writers on biological subjects that we find the\nmost salient instances of this contraction. With extraordinary\nself-abnegation they seem, in the contemplation of the problem with\nwhich they are concerned, to forget that they themselves are living\nthings, and, more than that, the living things of whom they ought to\nknow and could know most, however little that most may be. When the\nbiologist begins to philosophise as, after the manner of his kind, he\noften does, he should leave his microscope and look around him; whereas\nhe often forgets even to change the high for the low power. Thus he\nlimits his field of vision and forgets, when attempting his explanation,\nthat it is only _within a system_ that he is working. Professor Ward, in\n_Naturalism and Agnosticism_, says:\n\n     \"From the strict premisses of Positivism we can never prove\n     the existence of other minds or find a place for such\n     conceptions as cause and substance; for into these premisses\n     the existence of our own mind and its self-activity have not\n     entered. And accordingly we have seen Naturalism led on in\n     perfect consistency to resolve man into an automaton that\n     goes of itself as part of a still vaster automaton, Nature\n     as mechanically conceived, which goes of itself. True, this\n     mechanism goes of itself because it _is_ going, and being\n     altogether inert, cannot stop or change. How it ever started\n     is indeed a question which science cannot answer, but which,\n     on the other hand, it has no occasion to ask: time, its one\n     independent variable, extends indefinitely without hint of\n     either beginning or end. Such a system of knowledge, _once\n     we are inside it_, so to say, is entirely self-contained and\n     complete.\"\n\n\"_Once we are inside it!_\" what so many writers forget or ignore is that\nthey _are_ inside it, and that their explanations do not explain the\nsystem or how it came to be there or to be in operation. Everybody is\nfamiliar with Paley's example of the watch found on the heath. Let us\ncarry it a little further. Suppose some student, after devoting years of\npatient examination to the watch, were to come forward and say: \"I have\ndiscovered the secret of this watch. There is a spring in it which\npossesses resiliency, and it is that which drives the wheels. I think I\nhave heard people say that there must have been a watchmaker to design\nand construct this piece of machinery, but, in face of my discoveries,\nany such explanation is wholly unnecessary and may be altogether\nabandoned.\"\n\nPerhaps this analogy may be regarded as exaggerated; but, before thus\ncondemning it, let the following passage be studied. It is from a very\nimportant book recently published, which claims (and has had its claim\nsupported by many periodicals) to have done away with any need for an\nexplanation of life beyond that which can be given by chemistry and\nphysics, Jacques Loeb's _Organism as a Whole, from a Physico-Chemical\nViewpoint_.\n\nIt would be hard to find a worse example of confused thinking than that\nof the following passage:\n\n     \"The idea that the organism as a whole cannot be explained\n     from a physico-chemical viewpoint rests most strongly on the\n     existence of animal instincts and will. Many of the\n     instinctive actions are 'purposeful,' _i.e._ assisting to\n     preserve the individual and the race. This again suggests\n     'design' and a designing 'force,' which we do not find in\n     the realm of physics. We must remember, however, that there\n     was a time when the same 'purposefulness' was believed to\n     exist in the cosmos where everything seemed to turn\n     literally and metaphorically around the earth, the abode of\n     man. In the latter case, the anthropo- or geo-centric view\n     came to an end when it was shown that the motions of the\n     planets were regulated by Newton's law, _and that there was\n     no room left for the activities of a guiding power_.\n     Likewise, in the realm of instincts, when it can be shown\n     that these instincts may be reduced to elementary\n     physico-chemical laws, the assumption of design becomes\n     superfluous.\" (_Italics mine._)\n\nIn the first place the \"purposefulness\" of the movements of the planets\nis not affected in the very least by the question of heliocentricism.\nWhat the author is probably thinking of is an exaggerated and obsolete\nteleology, but that is not what seems to be the purport of the passage.\nLet that pass. The main confusion lies in the application of the term\n\"Law.\" The Ten Commandments, and our familiar friend D.O.R.A., are laws\nwe must obey or take the consequences of our disobedience. The \"laws\"\nwhich the writer is dealing with are not anything of this kind. Newton's\nLaw is not a thing made by Newton, but an orderly system of events which\nwas in existence long before Newton's time, but was first demonstrated\nby him. It tells us how a certain part of the system works--when we are\n\"_inside it_.\" It does not in the least explain the system any more than\nthe discovery of the resiliency of the spring of the watch explains the\nwatch itself. So far from dispensing with \"the activities of a guiding\npower,\" Newton's law is positively clamant for a final explanation,\nsince it does not tell us, nor does it pretend to tell us, how the \"law\"\ncame into existence, still less how the planets came to be there, or how\nthey happen to be in a state of motion at all. Writers of this kind\nnever seem to have grasped the significance of such simple matters as\nthe different kinds of causes, or to be aware that a formal cause is not\nan efficient cause, and that neither of them is a final cause. Coming to\nthe latter part of the paragraph, it is in no way proved that instincts\ncan be reduced to physico-chemical laws, and, suppose it were proved,\nthe assumption of design would be exactly where it is at this moment. It\nis the old story of St. Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna and their discussion\non abiogenesis, and surely biologists might be expected to have heard of\nthat. The same confusion of thought is to be met with elsewhere in this\nbook, and in other similar books, and a few instances may now be\nexamined.\n\nSamuel Butler, in _Life and Habit_, warns his readers against the dicta\nof scientific men, and more particularly against his own dicta, though\nhe made no claim to be a scientist. If his reader _must_ believe in\nsomething, \"let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting of\nGiovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's first\nEpistle to the Corinthians.\" And he exclaims: \"Let us have no more 'Lo,\nhere!' with the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows;\nno sooner has he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great\nflourish of trumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than\nhimself.\" That is a somewhat unkind way of putting it; but undoubtedly\ntheory after theory is put forward, and often claimed to be final, only\nto disappear when another explanation takes its place. Thus at the\nmoment we are in the full flood of the chemical theory which is employed\nto explain inheritance. That heredity exists we all know, but so far we\nknow nothing about its mechanism. Darwin, with \"Pangenesis,\" and others,\nusing other titles, argued in favour of a \"particulate\" explanation, but\nthe number of particles which would be necessary to account for the\nphenomena involved, this and other difficulties, have practically put\nthis explanation out of court. Then we had the Mnemic theory of Hering,\nButler, and others, by which the unconscious memory of the embryo--even\nthe germ--is the explanation. Quite lately the mnemic theory has been\nclaimed by Rignano in his _Scientific Synthesis_ as a complete\nexplanation, in forgetfulness of the fact that even the all-powerful\nprotozoon can only remember what has passed and could certainly not\n_remember_ that it was some day going to breed a man. At the moment,\nthings are explained on a chemical basis, though that basis is far from\nfirm; is of a shifting nature, and a little hazy in details. Some time\nago, colloids were the cry. A President of the British Association\nalmost led one to imagine that \"the homunculus in the retort\" might be\nexpected in a few weeks. But the chemists would have none of this, and\ndenied that the colloids, about which they ought to know more than do\nthe biologists, had that promise in them which had been claimed. We had\nLeduc and his \"fairy flowers,\" as now we have Loeb and others with their\nmetabolites and hormones. As to these last, there seems to be no kind of\ndoubt that the internal secretions of many organs and structures have\neffects which were, even a few years ago, quite unsuspected. Those of\nthe thyroid and adrenals are excellent examples.\n\nIt seems to be the fate, however, of all supporters of new theories to\nrun into extravagances. Darwin had to remind his enthusiastic disciples\nthat Natural Selection could not create variations, and we may feel some\nconfidence that Hering, were he alive, would urge his followers to bear\nin mind that memory cannot create a state of affairs which never\nexisted. So far we may certainly say that these internal secretions do\nproduce certain physical effects, some of them effects not to be\nsuspected by the uninformed reader. There seems to be very good evidence\nthat the growth of antlers in deer depends upon an internal secretion\nfrom the sex-gland and from the interstitial tissue of that gland; for\nit is apparently upon the secretions of this portion of the gland that\nthe secondary sexual characters depend, and not merely these, but also\nthe normal sexual instincts. And this takes us a stage further. The\nextreme claim is that all instincts, in fact all thoughts and\noperations, are in the last analysis chemical or chemico-physical. Let\nus examine this claim for a moment. The adrenals are two inconspicuous\nductless bodies situated immediately above the kidneys. Not many years\nago, when the present writer was a medical student, all that was known\nabout these organs was that when stricken with a certain disease, known\nas Addison's disease from the name of its first describer, the\nunfortunate possessor of the diseased glands became of a more or less\nrich chocolate colour. To-day we know that the internal secretion of\nthese organs is a very powerful styptic, and there is good reason to\nbelieve that a copious discharge accompanies an unusual exhibition of\nrage. When we are told things of this kind we must first of all remember\nthat the adrenalin does not cause the rage, though it may produce its\nconcomitant phenomena. If a man flies into a violent passion because\nsomeone has trodden upon his corns, and there is a copious flow of\nadrenalin from the glands, it is not that flow which has caused his\nrage. It may be the flow from the interstitial tissue of the sex-glands\nwhich engenders sexual feelings, but then those are almost wholly\nphysical, and only in a very minor sense--if even if any true\nsense--psychical. Persons who take the extreme view have never yet\nsuggested that there is a characteristic hormone connected with those\npsychical attributes alluded to in the chapter of the Corinthians\nrecommended to our notice by Butler. In fact they seem to ignore all but\nthe lower or vegetable characters when dealing with psychology from the\nchemico-physical point of view.\n\nFinally, we come again to the fatal and fundamental defect of this as of\nother \"explanations\"; it is an explanation \"_within the system_,\" and\ntherefore unphilosophical in so far as it fails to explain the facts\nthrough their ultimate or deepest reasons.\n\nA large part of Loeb's book is devoted to a description of the author's\nremarkable experiments in artificial parthenogenesis, and an attempt to\nshow that they offer a complete explanation. Sir William Tilden, one of\nthe greatest living authorities on organic chemistry, tells us that \"too\nmuch has been made of the curious observations of J. Loeb and others\";\nand he definitely states that when we consider \"the propagation of the\nanimal races by the sexual process ... there can be no fear of\ncontradiction in the statement that in the whole range of physical and\nchemical phenomena there is no ground for even a suggestion of an\nexplanation.\" Behind this pronouncement of an expert, one might well\nshelter oneself; but the question under consideration merits a little\nfurther treatment. The reproduction of kind, though usually a bi-sexual\nprocess, may, however, normally in rare cases be uni-sexual, and this\nprocess is known as Parthenogenesis. Even in human beings certain\ntumours of the sex-glands, known as teratomata, very rare in women and\neven rarer, if ever existent, in men, have been claimed as examples of\nattempts at parthenogenesis, and so far no better explanation is\navailable.\n\nNow Loeb and others have succeeded in certain forms--even in a\nvertebrate like the frog--in inducing development in unimpregnated ova.\nThe evidence for all these things is still slender; but we will content\nourselves with noting that point and passing on to the consideration of\nthe phenomena and the claims put forward in connection with them. We\nfind the task of unravelling the writer's meaning rendered more\ndifficult by a certain confusion in his use of terms, since\nfertilisation, _i.e._ syngamy--the union of the different sex\nproducts--seems to be confused with segmentation, _i.e._ germination;\nand this confusion is accentuated by the claim that \"the main effect of\nthe spermatozoon in inducing the development of the egg consists in an\nalteration in the surface of the latter which is apparently of the\nnature of a cytolysis of the cortical layer. Anything that causes this\nalteration without endangering the rest of the egg may induce its\ndevelopment.\" When the spermatozoon enters the ovum it causes some\nalteration in the surface membrane of the latter which, amongst other\nthings, prevents the entrance of further spermatozoa. Loeb thinks that\nin causing this alteration it sets up the segmentation of the ovum. That\nthere is a close connection between the two events seems undoubted; that\nthey are in relation of cause and effect seems likely. It is quite\nevident that an artificial stimulus can in certain cases set up\nsegmentation, but never can it cause the fertilisation of the ovum. It\nmay very likely produce the same change in the membrane that is caused\nby the entrance of the spermatozoon under normal circumstances--membrane\nformation may be necessarily coincident with the liberation in the egg\nof some zymose which arises from a pre-existent zymogen. But we are\nstill some way off any assurance that the _main_ object of the\nspermatozoon in inducing the development of the egg is this surface\nalteration. It may be the initial effect; very probably it is; but since\nthe main function of the spermatozoon must be the introduction of\ngermplasm from the male parent, it is too much for anyone to ask us to\nbelieve that its _main_ function is concerned with surface alteration.\n\nLoeb argues that the change in the surface membrane is of a chemical\ncharacter, and that no doubt may be correct; but even if we allow him\nevery scientific fact, or surmise, he is still, as in the other cases\nwith which we have dealt, miles away from any real explanation. He is\nstill inside his chemico-physical explanation to begin with; and, even\nwithin that, he still leaves us anxious for the explanation of a number\nof points--for example, as to the nature of the chemical process which\naccompanies, or is the cause of, segmentation. We in no way press these\nquestions; for similar demands could be made in so many cases; we only\nindicate that they are there. What we do press is this--that when an\nauthority comes forward to assure us that all the processes of life,\nincluding man's highest as well as his lowest attributes, can be\nexplained on chemico-physical lines, we are entitled to ask for a more\ncogent proof of it than the demonstration, however complete, of the\ngermination of an egg, caused by artificial stimulus and not by the\nordinary method of syngamy, even though that germination may lead to the\nproduction of a perfect adult form. We are entitled to ask him to make\nclear to us not only what is happening _within his system_, but--which\nis far more important--what that system is, and how it came into\nexistence. We are entitled to ask why the artificial stimulus, or the\nentry of the spermatozoon, produces the effects which it is claimed to\nproduce instead of any one of some score of other effects which it might\nconceivably have produced. Above all we are entitled to ask why there\nare any effects, or even why there is any ovum or any spermatozoon or\ncurious physiological investigator, to give the artificial stimulus.\nUntil some light is thrown upon these things we are still within the\nsystem, or merely hovering round its confines, and are far away from any\nfinal or philosophical explanation such as would satisfy the mind of\nthe man who wants to get a real and not a partial knowledge of the\nthings around him.\n\nWe may now turn to the question of Vitalism. It was long the regnant\ntheory; then temporarily the Cinderella of biology; it is now returning\nto its early position, though still denied by those of the older school\nof thought who cannot imagine the kitchen wench of yesterday the ruler\nof to-day. One of the objections to Vitalism is that this explanation of\nliving things is thought by ignorant writers to be so inextricably mixed\nup with theological considerations as to furnish a case of _stantis aut\ncadentis ecclesiae_. That is, of course, absurd; but it creates an\nundoubted bias against the theory. Hence it is the fashion amongst its\nopponents to write of it as \"mystical\" or, as Loeb does, as\n\"supernatural,\" probably the most illogical term that could possibly be\nused. What is Vitalism? It is the theory that there is some other\nelement--call it entelechy with Driesch, or call it what you like--in\nliving things than those elements known to chemistry and physics. If it\nis _not_ there, _cadit quaestio_; if it _is_ there it is not\n\"supernatural.\" It might with reason be called \"super-mechanical,\" or\n\"super-chemical,\" or \"super-physical\"; but if it is in Nature, as it is\nheld to be, it is not \"supernatural\" in any true sense of that word--no\ndictionary confines the term \"Nature\" to the operations of chemistry and\nphysics.\n\nA good deal of the misconception existing on this point comes from pure\nignorance of philosophy, a subject with which writers of this school\nseldom have even a nodding acquaintance. \"The idea of a quasi-superhuman\nintelligence presiding over the forces of the living is met with in the\nfield of regeneration.\" Echoes of the Cartesian idea of the soul seem to\nring in this statement; but it could not have been written by anyone who\nhad mastered the Aristotelian or the Scholastic explanation of matter\nand form. But let us take this question of Regeneration; the power which\nall living things have, in some measure, though in very different\nmeasure, of reconstructing themselves when injured. It has been dealt\nwith in a masterly manner by Driesch; and we may at once say that we do\nnot think that Loeb has in any way contraverted his argument, nor even\nentered the first line of defence of that which is built up around what\nhe calls by the somewhat forbidding name of \"Harmonious-Equipotential\nSystem.\"\n\nLet us take one particular example, a very remarkable one, which has\nbeen cited by both writers--Wolff's experiment on the lens of the eye.\nThe lens is just behind the pupil or central aperture in the iris or\ncoloured ring at the front of the eye, and behind the cornea which is to\nthe eye what a watch-glass is to a watch. If the lens of the eye be\nremoved from a newt, as it is from human beings in the operation for\ncataract, the animal will grow another one. How does it do it? In\ncertain cases a tiny fragment of the lens has been left behind after the\noperation, and the new one grows from that. This is sufficiently\nwonderful, but by no means so wonderful as what happens in other cases\nin which the entire lens has been removed and the new lens grows from\nthe outer pigmented layer of the margin of the iris. To the unbiological\nreader one source of origin will not seem more wonderful than the other,\nbut there is really a vast distinction between them. At an early stage\nin the development of the embryo, the cells composing it become\ndivisible into three layers. It is even possible, as Loeb maintains,\nthat this differentiation is present in the unsegmented ovum, in which\ncase the facts to be detailed become still more remarkable and\nsignificant. These layers are known as epi-, meso-, and hypo-blast; and\nfrom each one of them arise certain portions of the body, and certain\nportions only. It would be as remarkable to a biologist to find these\nlayers not breeding true as it would to a fowl-fancier to discover that\nthe eggs of his Buff Orpingtons were producing young turkeys or ducks.\nNow the lens is an epiblastic structure, and the iris is mesoblastic.\nHence the wonder with which we are filled when we find the iris growing\na lens. Loeb attempts to explain this in the first instance by telling\nus that the cells of the iris cannot grow and develop as long as they\nare pigmented; that the operation wounds the iris, allows pigment to\nescape, and thus permits of proliferation. We may accept this, and yet\nask why it takes on a form of growth familiar to us only in connection\nwith epiblast? The reply is: \"Young cells when put into the optic cup\nalways become transparent, no matter what their origin; it looks as if\nthis were due to a chemical influence, exercised by the optic cup or by\nthe liquid it contains.\n\n\"Lewis has shown that when the optic cup is transplanted into any other\nplace under the epithelium of a larva of a frog the epithelium will\nalways grow into the cup where the latter comes in contact with the\nepithelium; and that the ingrowing part will always become transparent.\"\nA most remarkable and interesting experiment; it has this very important\nlimitation--that it is always _epithelium_ with which it has to do,\nwhereas in Wolff's experiment the regeneration takes place from\nmesoblastic tissue. The cause of the transparency may be a chemical\nreaction--it depends a good deal upon our definition of that phrase. Is\nprotoplasm a chemical compound? Some have considered it so, and spoken\nof its marvellously complicated molecule. Of course it is made up of\ncarbon, hydrogen, and other substances within the domain of chemistry.\nBut is it, therefore, merely a chemical compound? The reply involves the\nwhole riddle of Vitalism. The author would say that it, as well as all\nthe living things to which it belongs, is purely and solely a chemical\ncompound; and he must take the consequences of his belief. One of these\nconsequences, from which doubtless he would not shrink, would be that a\nsuper-chemist (so to speak) could write him and his experiments and his\nbook down in a series of chemical formulae--a consequence which takes a\ngood deal of believing. But it also involves him in a belief in the\nrigidity of chemical reactions; and we are entitled to ask for an\nexplanation of the identical behaviour of the chemical reaction in\nconnection with epiblastic and mesoblastic cells--both pure chemical\ncompounds _ex hypothesi_ and, as far as we can tell from their normal\nbehaviour, widely differing from one another. The optic cup, or its\ncontained fluid, is one chemical compound; epithelium is another;\nmesoblast is a third. We want an explanation of the identical behaviour\nof the first with _either_ of the two latter; and this should be borne\nin mind--that the reaction is not a mere matter of \"clearing\" of a\ntissue as the histologist would clear his section by oil-of-cloves or\nother reagent, but of the construction of a different type of\ncell--epithelial, not connective tissue.\n\nIt certainly follows that there must be some superior, at least widely\ndifferent, agency at work than one of a purely chemical\ncharacter--something which transcends chemical operations. This is\nprecisely what the Vitalist claims. No one will fail to award praise to\nany attempts to explain the phenomena of Nature, whether within or\nwithout any system. Loeb's book sets out to do a great deal more--to\nexplain what it does not explain--the Organism as a Whole, and thus to\ngive a philosophical explanation of man. It even claims to afford hints\nfor a rule for his life, at least so we gather from the Preface, where,\nalluding to \"that group of freethinkers, including d'Alembert, Diderot,\nHolbach and Voltaire,\" the author tells us that they \"first dared to\nfollow the consequences of a mechanistic science--incomplete as it then\nwas--to the rules of human conduct, and thereby laid the foundation of\nthat spirit of tolerance, justice, and gentleness which was the hope of\nour civilisation until it was buried under the wave of homicidal emotion\nwhich has swept through the world.\" On which it is surely reasonable to\nask how a chemical reaction can learn so to alter itself as to exhibit\n\"tolerance, justice, and gentleness,\" attributes which it had not\npreviously possessed? Such claims of this and other writers, who would\nfind in the laws of Nature as formulated to-day (forgetful that their\nformulae may to-morrow be cast into the furnace) a rule of life as well\nas a full explanation of the cosmos, resemble in their lack of base an\ninverted pyramid.\n\n\n\n\nIV. SCIENCE IN \"BONDAGE\"\n\n\nAmongst the numerous taunts which are cast at the Catholic Church there\nis none more frequently employed, nor, it may be added, more generally\nbelieved, nor more injurious to her reputation amongst outsiders--even\nwith her own less-instructed children themselves at times--than the\nallegation which declares that where the Church has full sway, science\ncannot flourish, can scarcely in fact exist, and that the Church will\nonly permit men of science to study and to teach as and while she\npermits.\n\nTo give but one example of this attitude towards the Church, readers may\nbe reminded that Huxley[23] called the Catholic Church \"the vigorous\nenemy of the highest life of mankind,\" and rejoiced that evolution, \"in\naddition to its truth, has the great merit of being in a position of\nirreconcilable antagonism to it.\" An utterly incorrect, even ignorant\nstatement, by the way--but let that pass. The same writer, in a number\nof places, in season and out of season, as we may fairly say,[24]\nproclaims his wholly erroneous view that there is \"a necessary\nantagonism between science and Roman Catholic doctrine.\" We need not\nlabour this point. It is sufficiently obvious, nor does it need any\ncatena of authorities to establish the fact, that outside the Church,\nand even, as we have hinted above, amongst the less-instructed of her\nown children, there is a prevalent idea that the allegation with which\nthis paper proposes to deal is a true bill.\n\nThose who give credit to the allegation must of course ignore certain\nvery patent facts which are, it will be allowed, a little difficult to\nget over. They must commence by ignoring the historical fact that the\ngreater number--almost all indeed--of the older Universities, places\nspecially intended to foster and increase knowledge and research, owe\ntheir origin to Papal bulls. They must ignore the fact that vast numbers\nof scientific researches, often of fundamental importance, especially\nperhaps in the subjects of anatomy and physiology, emanated from learned\nmen attached to seats of learning in Rome, and this during the Middle\nAges, and that the learned men who were their authors quite frequently\nheld official positions in the Papal Court. They must finally ignore the\nfact that a large number of the most distinguished scientific workers\nand discoverers in the past were also devout children of the Catholic\nChurch. Stensen, \"the Father of Geology\" and a great anatomical\ndiscoverer as well, was a bishop; Mendel, whose name is so often heard\nnowadays in biological controversies, was an abbot. And what about\nGalvani, Volta, Pasteur, Schwann (the originator of the Cell Theory),\nvan Beneden, Johannes Mueller, admitted by Huxley to be \"the greatest\nanatomist and physiologist among my contemporaries\"?[25] What about\nKircher, Spallanzani, Secchi, de Lapparent, to take the names of persons\nof different historical periods, and connected with different subjects,\nyet all united in the bond of the Faith? To point to these men--and a\nhost of other names might be cited--is to overthrow at once and finally\nthe edifice of falsehood reared by enemies of the Church, who, before\nerecting it, might reasonably have been asked to look to the security of\ntheir foundations.\n\nStill there is the edifice, and as every edifice must rest on some kind\nof foundation or another, even if that foundation be nothing but sand,\nit may be useful and interesting to inquire, as I now propose to do,\nwhat foundation there is--if in fact there is any--for this particular\nallegation.\n\nWe might commence by interrogating the persons who make it. The\nprobability is that the reply which would at once be drawn from most of\nthem would amount to this: \"Everybody knows it to be true.\" If the\ninterrogated person is amongst those less imperfectly informed we shall\nprobably be referred to Huxley or to some other writer. Or we may even\nfind ourselves confronted with that greater knowledge--or less\ninspissated ignorance--which babbles about Galileo, the Inquisition, the\n_Index_, and the _imprimatur_.\n\nGalileo and his case we shall consider later on, for he and it are\nreally germane to the question with which we are dealing. The\nInquisition has really nothing to do with the matter. The _Index_ we\nalso reserve for a later part of this essay. With the _imprimatur_ we\nmay now deal, since there is no doubt that there is a genuine\nmisunderstanding on this subject on the part of some people who are\nmisled perhaps through ignorance of Latin and quite certainly through\nignorance of what the whole matter amounts to. Let us begin by reminding\nourselves that, though the unchanging Church is now, so far as I am\naware, the only body which issues an _imprimatur_, there were other\ninstances of the exercise of such a privilege even in recent or\ncomparatively recent days. There were Royal licences to print with which\nwe need not concern ourselves. But, what is important, there was a time\nwhen the scientific authority of the day assumed the right of issuing an\n_imprimatur_. I take the first book which occurs to me, Tyson's\n_Anatomie of a Pygmie_, and for the sake of those who are not acquainted\nwith it, I may add that this book is not only the foundation-stone of\nComparative Anatomy, but also, through its appendix _A Philological\nEssay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges\nof the Ancients_, the foundation-stone of all folk-lore study. On the\npage fronting the title of this work the following appears:\n\n                                       _17 Die Maij, 1699._\n\n       _Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang sive Homo\n     Sylvestris, etc. Authore Edvardo Tyson, M.D., R.S.S._\n\n                                    _John Hoskins, V.P.R.S._\n\nWhat does this mean? In the first place it shows, what all instructed\npersons know, that the Royal Society did then exercise the privilege of\ngiving an _imprimatur_ at any rate to books written by its own Fellows.\nIt cannot be supposed that such _imprimatur_ guaranteed the accuracy of\nall the statements made by Tyson, for we may feel sure that John Hoskins\nwas quite unable to give any such assurance. We must assume that it\nmeant that there was nothing in the book which would reflect discredit\nupon the Society of which Tyson was a Fellow and from which the\n_imprimatur_ was obtained.\n\nHowever this may be, the sway over its Fellows' publications was\nexercised, and indeed very excellent arguments might be adduced for the\nreassumption of such a sway even to-day.[26]\n\nThough the _imprimatur_ in question has fallen into desuetude, it is, as\nwe all know, the commonest of things for the introductions to works of\nscience to occupy some often considerable part of their space with\nacknowledgments of assistance given by learned friends who have read the\nmanuscript or the proofs and made suggestions with the object of\nimproving the book or adding to its accuracy. Any person who has written\na book can feel nothing but gratitude towards those who have helped him\nto avoid the errors and slips to which even the most careful are\nsubject.\n\nSo that such acknowledgments of assistance have come to be almost what\nthe lawyers call \"common form.\" What they really amount to is a\nproclamation on the part of the author that he has done his best to\nensure that his book is free from mistakes. Now the _imprimatur_ really\namounts to the same thing, for it is, of course, confined to books or\nparts of books where theology or philosophy trenching upon theology is\nconcerned. Thus a book may deal largely, perhaps mainly, with scientific\npoints, yet necessarily include allusions to theological dogmas. The\n_imprimatur_ to such a book would relate solely and entirely to the\ntheological parts, just as the advice of an architectural authority on a\npoint connected with that subject in a work in which it was mentioned\nonly in an incidental manner, would refer to that point, and to nothing\nelse. Perhaps it should be added, that no author is obliged to obtain an\n_imprimatur_ any more than he is compelled to seek advice on any other\npoint in connection with his book. \"_Nihil Obstat_,\" says the skilled\nreferee: \"I see no reason to suppose that there is anything in all this\nwhich contravenes theological principles.\" To which the authority\nappealed to adds \"_imprimatur_:\" \"Then by all means let it be printed.\"\nThe procedure is no doubt somewhat more stately and formal than the\nmodern system of acknowledgments, yet in actual practice there is but\nlittle to differentiate the two methods of ensuring, so far as is\npossible, that the work is free from mistakes. That neither the\nassistance of friends nor the _imprimatur_ of authorities is infallible\nis proved by the facts that mistakes do creep into works of science,\nhowever carefully examined, and that more than one book with an\n_imprimatur_ has, none the less, found its way on to the _Index_. Before\nleaving this branch of the subject one cannot refrain from calling\nattention to another point. How often in advertisements of books do we\nnot see quotations from reviews in authoritative journals--a medical\nwork from the _Lancet_, a physical or chemical from _Nature_? Frequently\ntoo we see \"Mr. So-and-So, the well-known authority on the subject, says\nof this book, etc., etc.\" What are all these authoritative commendations\nbut an _imprimatur_ up to date?\n\nPassing from the _imprimatur_ to a closer consideration of our subject,\nit is above all things necessary to take the advice of Samuel Johnson\nand clear our minds of cant. Every person in this world--save perhaps a\nRobinson Crusoe on an otherwise uninhabited island, and he only because\nof his solitary condition--is in bondage more or less to others; that is\nto say, has his freedom more or less interfered with. That this\ninterference is in the interests of the community and so, in the last\nanalysis, in the interests of the person interfered with himself, in no\nway weakens the argument; it is rather a potent adjuvant to it. However\nmuch I may dislike him and however anxious I may be to injure him, I may\nnot go out and set fire to my neighbour's house nor to his rick-yard,\nunless I am prepared to risk the serious legal penalties which will be\nmy lot if I am detected in the act. I may not, if I am a small and\nactive boy, make a slide in the public street in frosty weather, unless\nI am prepared--as the small boy usually is--to run the gauntlet of the\npolice. In a thousand ways my freedom, or what I call my freedom, is\ninterfered with: it is the price which I pay for being one item of a\nsocial organism and for being in turn protected against others, who, in\nvirtue of that protection, are in their turn deprived of what they might\ncall their liberty.\n\nNo one can have failed to observe that this interference with personal\nliberty becomes greater day by day. It is a tendency of modern\ngovernments, based presumably upon increased experience, to increase\nthese protective regulations. Thus we have laws against adulteration of\nfood, against the placing of buildings concerned with obnoxious trades\nin positions where people will be inconvenienced by them. We make\npersons suffering from infectious diseases isolate themselves, and if\nthey cannot do this at home, we make them go to the fever hospital.\nFurther, we insist upon the doctor, whose position resembles that of a\nconfessor, breaking his obligation of professional secrecy and informing\nthe authorities as to the illness of his patient. We interfere with the\nliberty of men and women to work as long as they like or to make their\nchildren labour for excessive hours. We insist upon dangerous machinery\nbeing fenced in. In a thousand ways we--the State--interfere with the\nliberty of our fellows. Finally, when the needs of the community are\nmost pressing we interfere most with the freedom of the subject. Thus,\nin these islands, we were recently living under a Defence of the Realm\nAct--with which no reasonable person quarrelled. Yet it forbad many\nthings not only harmless in themselves but habitually permitted in times\nof peace. We were subject to penalties if we showed lighted windows:\nthey must be shuttered or provided with heavy curtains. We might not\ntravel in railway carriages at night with the blinds undrawn. The papers\nmight not publish, nor we say in public, things which in time of peace\nwould go unnoticed. There were a host of other matters to which allusion\nneed not be made. Enough has been said to show that the State has and\nexerts the right to control the actions of those who belong to it, and\nthat in time of stress it can and does very greatly intensify that\ncontrol and does so without arousing any real or widespread discontent.\nOf course we all grumble, but then everybody, except its own members,\nalways does more or less grumble at anything done by any government:\nthat is the ordinary state of affairs. But at any rate we submit\nourselves, more or less gracefully, to this restraint because we\npersuade ourselves or are persuaded that it is for the good of the State\nand thus for the good of ourselves, both as private individuals and as\nmembers of the State.\n\nAnd many of us, at any rate, comfort ourselves with the thought that a\ngreat many of the regulations which appear to be most tyrannical and\nmost to interfere with the natural liberty of mankind are devised not\nwith that end in view but with the righteous intention of protecting\nthose weaker members of the body who are unable to protect themselves.\nIf the State does not stand by such members and offer itself as their\nshield and support, it has no claim to our obedience, no real right to\nexist, and so we put up with the inconvenience, should such arise, on\naccount of the protection given to the weaker members and often extended\nto those who would by no means feel pleased if they heard themselves\nthus described.\n\nLet us substitute the Church for the State and let us remember that\nthere are times when she is at closer grips with the powers of evil than\nmay be the case at other times. The parallel is surely sufficiently\nclose.\n\nSo far as earthly laws can control one, no one is obliged to be a member\nof the Catholic Church nor a citizen of the British Empire. I can, if I\nchoose, emigrate to America, in process of time naturalise myself there\nand join the Christian Science organisation or any other body to which I\nfind myself attracted. But as long as I remain a Catholic and a British\ncitizen I must submit myself to the restrictions imposed by the bodies\nwith which I have elected to connect myself. We arrive at the conclusion\nthen that the ordinary citizen, even if he never adverts to the fact, is\nin reality controlled and his liberty limited in all sorts of\ndirections.\n\nNow the scientific man, in his own work, is subject to all sorts of\nlimitations, apart altogether from the limitations to which, as an\nordinary member of the State, he has to submit himself.\n\nHe is restricted by science: he is not completely free but is bound by\nknowledge--the knowledge which he or others have acquired.\n\nTo say he is limited by it is not to say that he is imprisoned by it or\nin bondage to it. \"One does not lose one's intellectual liberty when one\nlearns mathematics,\" says the late Monsignor Benson in one of his\nletters, \"though one certainly loses the liberty of doing sums wrong or\ndoing them by laborious methods!\"\n\nBefore setting out upon any research, the careful man of science sets\nhimself to study \"the literature of the subject\" as he calls it. He\ndelves into all sorts of out-of-the-way periodicals to ascertain what\nsuch a man has written upon such a point. All this he does in order that\nhe may avoid doing a piece of work over again unnecessarily:\n_unnecessarily_, for it maybe actually necessary to repeat it, if it is\nof very great importance and if it has not been repeated and verified by\nother observers. Further, he delves into this literature because it is\nthus that he hopes to avoid the many blind alleys which branch off from\nevery path of research, delude their explorer with vain hopes and\nfinally bring him face to face with a blank wall. In a word the inquirer\nconsults his authorities and when he finds them worthy of reliance, he\nlimits his freedom by paying attention to them. He does not say: \"How am\nI held in bondage by this assertion that the earth goes round the sun,\"\nbut accepting that fact, he rejects such of his conclusions as are\nobviously irreconcilable with it. Surely this is plain common sense and\nthe man who acted otherwise would be setting himself a quite impossible\ntask. It is the weakness of the \"heuristic method\" that it sets its\npupils to find out things which many abler men have spent years in\ninvestigating. The man who sets out to make a research, without first\nascertaining what others have done in that direction, proposes to\naccumulate in himself the abilities and the life-work of all previous\ngenerations of labourers in that corner of the scientific vineyard.\n\nThere is a somewhat amusing and certainly interesting instance of this\nwhich will bear quotation. The late Mr. Grant Allen, who knew something\nof quite a number of subjects though perhaps not very much about any of\nthem, devoted most of his time and energies (outside his stories, some\nof which are quite entertaining) to not always very accurate essays in\nnatural history. One day, however, his evil genius prompted him to write\nand, worse still, to publish a book entitled _Force and Energy: A Theory\nof Dynamics_, in which he purported to deal with a matter of which he\nknew far less even than he did about animated nature. Mark the\ninevitable result! A copy of the book was forwarded to the journal\n_Nature_, and sent by its editor to be dealt with by the competent hands\nof Sir Oliver (then Professor) Lodge.[27]\n\nThis is how that eminent authority dealt with it. \"There exists a\ncertain class of mind,\" he commences, \"allied perhaps to the Greek\nsophist variety, to which ignorance of a subject offers no sufficient\nobstacle to the composition of a treatise upon it.\" It may be rash to\nsuggest that this type of mind is well developed in philosophers of the\nSpencerian school, though it would be possible to adduce some evidence\nin support of such a suggestion. \"In the volume before us,\" he\ncontinues, \"Mr. Grant Allen sets to work to reconstruct the fundamental\nscience of dynamics, an edifice which, since the time of Galileo and\nNewton, has been standing on what has seemed a fairly secure and\nsubstantial basis, but which he seems to think it is now time to\ndemolish in order to make room for a newly excogitated theory. The\nattempt is audacious and the result--what might have been expected. The\nperformance lends itself indeed to the most scathing criticism; blunders\nand misstatements abound on nearly every page, and the whole thing is\nsimply an emanation of mental fog.\" It would occupy too much space to\nreproduce this criticism with any fullness, but one or two points\nexceedingly germane to our subject can hardly go without notice.\nAlluding to a certain question, which seems to have greatly bothered Mr.\nAllen and likewise Mr. Clodd, who, it would appear, was associated with\nhim in this performance, the reviewer says: \"The puzzle was solved\ncompletely long ago, in the clearest possible manner, and the\n'_Principia_' is the witness to it; but it is still felt to be a\ndifficulty by beginners, and I suppose there is no offence in applying\nthis harmless epithet to both Mr. Grant Allen and Mr. Clodd, so far as\nthe truths of dynamics and physics are concerned.\" One last quotation:\n\"The thing which strikes one most forcibly about the physics of these\npaper philosophers is the extraordinary contempt which, if they are\nconsistent, they must or ought to feel for men of science. If Newton,\nLagrange, Gauss, and Thompson, to say nothing of smaller men, have\nmuddled away their brains in concocting a scheme of dynamics wherein the\nvery definitions are all wrong; if they have arrived at a law of\nconservation of energy without knowing what the word energy means, or\nhow to define it; if they have to be set right by an amateur who has\ndevoted a few weeks or months to the subject and acquired a rude\nsmattering of some of its terms, 'what intolerable fools they must all\nbe!'\" Such is the result of asserting one's freedom by escaping the\nlimitations of knowledge! We see what happens when a person sets out to\ndeal with science untrammelled by any considerations as to what others\nhave thought and established. The necessary result is that he plunges\nheadforemost into all or most of the errors which were pitfalls to the\nfirst labourers in the field. Or, again, he painfully and uselessly\npursues the blind alleys which they had wandered in, and from which a\nperusal of their works would have warned off later comers.\n\nOh, irony of fate! the same thing precisely happens when men of\nscientific eminence indulge in religious dissertations, for of course,\nthough it is not quite so obvious to such writers, the same blunder is\nquite possible in non-scientific fields of knowledge. I once asked one\nversed in theology what he thought of the religious articles of a\ndistinguished man, unfamiliar himself with theology, yet, none the less,\nthen splashing freely and to the great admiration of the ignorant, in\nthe theological pool. His reply was that in so far as they were at all\nconstructive, they consisted mostly of exploded heresies of the first\ncentury. Is not this precisely what one would have expected _a priori_?\nA man commencing to write on science or religion who neglects the work\nof earlier writers places himself in the position of the first students\nof the subject and very naturally will make the same mistakes as they\nmade. He refuses to be hampered and biased by knowledge, and the result\nfollows quite inevitably. \"A scientist,\" says Monsignor Benson, \"is\nhampered and biased by knowing the earth goes round the sun.\" The fact\nof the matter is that the man of science is not a solitary figure, a\n_chimaera bombinans in vacuo_. In whatever direction he looks he is faced\nby the figures of other workers and he is limited and \"hampered\" by\ntheir work. Nor are these workers all of them in his own area of\ncountry, for the biologist, for example, cannot afford to neglect the\ndoings of the chemist; if he does he is bound to find himself led into\nmistakes. No doubt the scientific man is at times needlessly hampered by\ntheories which he and others at the time take to be fairly well\nestablished facts, but which after all turn out to be nothing of the\nkind. This in no way weakens the argument, but rather by giving an\nadditional reason for caution, strengthens it.\n\nIf we carefully consider the matter we shall be unable to come to any\nother conclusion than that every writer, even of the wildest form of\nfiction, is in some way and to some extent hampered and limited by\nknowledge, by facts, by things as they are or as they appear to be. That\nwill be admitted; but it will be urged that the hampering and limiting\nwith which we have been dealing is not merely legitimate but inevitable,\nwhereas the hampering and limiting--should such there be--on the part of\nthe Church is wholly illegitimate and indefensible.\n\n\"All that you say is no doubt true,\" our antagonist will urge, \"but you\nhave still to show that your Church has any right or title to interfere\nin these matters. And even if you can make some sort of case for her\ninterference, you have still to disprove what so many people believe,\nnamely, that the right, real or assumed, has not been arbitrarily used\nto the damage, or at least to the delay of scientific progress.\nChemistry,\" we may suppose our antagonist continuing, \"no doubt has a\nlegitimate right to have its say, even to interfere and that\nimperatively, where chemical considerations invade the field of biology,\nfor example. But what similar right does religion possess? For\ninstance,\" he might proceed, \"some few years ago a distinguished\nphysiologist, then occupying the Chair of the British Association,\ninvoked the behaviour of certain chemical substances known as colloids\nin favour of his anti-vitalistic conclusions. At once he was answered by\na number of equally eminent chemists that the attitude he had adopted\nwas quite incompatible with facts as known to them; in a word, that\nchemistry disagreed with his ideas as to colloids. Everybody admitted\nthat the chemists must have the final word on this subject: are you now\nclaiming that religion or theology, or whatever you choose to call it,\nis also entitled to a say in a matter of that kind?\" This supposititious\nconversation illustrates the confusion which exists in many minds as to\nthe point at issue. One science is entitled to contradict another, just\nas one scientific man is entitled to contradict another on a question of\nfact. But on a question of _fact_ a theologian is not entitled--_qua_\ntheologian--nor would he be expected to claim to be entitled, to\ncontradict a man of science.\n\nIt ought to be widely known, though it is not, that the idea that\ntheologians can or wish to intrude--again _qua_ theologians--in\nscientific disputes as to chemical, biological, or other facts, is a\nfantastic idea without real foundation save that of the one mistake of\nthe kind made in the case of Galileo and never repeated--a mistake, let\nus hasten to add, made by a disciplinary authority and--as all parties\nadmit--in no way involving questions of infallibility. To this case we\nwill revert shortly. Meanwhile it may be briefly stated that the claim\nmade by the Church is in connection with some few--some very few--of\nthe _theories_ which men of science build up upon the facts which they\nhave brought to light. Some of these theories do appear to contradict\ntheological dogmas, or at least may seem to simple people to be\nincompatible with such dogmas, just as the people of his\ntime--Protestants by the way, no less than Catholics--did really think\nthat Galileo's theory conflicted with Holy Writ. In such cases, and in\nsuch cases alone, the Church holds that she has at least the right to\nsay that such a theory should not be proclaimed to be true until there\nis sufficient proof for it to satisfy the scientific world that the\npoint has been demonstrated.\n\nThis is really what is meant by the tyranny of the Church; and it may\nnow be useful to consider briefly what can be said for her position. We\nmust begin by looking at the matter from the Church's standpoint. It is\na good rule to endeavour to understand your opponent's position before\nyou try to confute him; an excellent rule seldom complied with by\nanti-Catholic controversialists. Now the Church starts with the\nproposition that man has an immortal soul destined to eternal happiness\nor eternal misery, and she proceeds to claim that she has been divinely\nconstituted to help man to enjoy a future of happiness. Of course these\nare opinions which all do not share, and with the arguments for and\nagainst which we cannot here deal. If a man is quite sure that he has no\nsoul and that there is no hereafter there is nothing more to be said\nthan: \"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.\" Nothing very much\nmatters in this world except that we should make ourselves as\ncomfortable as we can during the few years we have to spend in it.\n\nAgain, there are others who, whilst believing the first doctrine set\ndown above, will have none of the other. With them we enter into no\nargument here, and only say that to have a guide is better than to have\nno guide. Catholics, who accept gratefully her guidance, do believe that\nthe Church can help a man to save his soul, and that she is entrusted,\nto that end, with certain powers. Her duty is to preserve and guard the\nChristian Revelation--the scheme of doctrine regarding belief and\nconduct by which Jesus Christ taught that souls were to be saved. She is\nnot an arbitrary ruler. Her office is primarily that of Judge and\nInterpreter of the deposit of doctrine entrusted to her.\n\nIn this she claims to be safeguarded against error, though her\ninfallible utterances would seem incredibly few, if summed up and\npresented to the more ignorant of her critics. She also claims to derive\nfrom her Founder legislative power by which she can make decrees, unmake\nthem or modify and vary them to suit different times and circumstances.\nShe rightfully claims the obedience of her children to this exercise of\nher authority, but such disciplinary enactments, by their very nature\nvariable and modifiable, do not and cannot come within the province of\nher infallibility, and admittedly they need not be always perfectly wise\nor judicious. Such disciplinary utterances, it may be added, at least\nin the field of which we are treating, indeed in any field, are also\nincredibly few when due regard is had to the enormous number of cases\npassing under the Church's observation.\n\nWe saw just now that the State exercised a very large jurisdiction for\nthe purpose of protecting the weak who were unable or little able to\nprotect themselves. It is really important to remember, when we are\nconsidering the powers of the Church and her exercise of them, that\nthese disciplinary powers are put in operation, not from mere arrogance\nor an arbitrary love of domination--as too many suppose--but with the\nprimary intention of protecting and helping the weaker members of the\nflock. If the Church consisted entirely of theological experts a good\ndeal of this exercise of disciplinary power might very likely be\nregarded as wholly unnecessary. Thus the Church freely concedes not only\nto priests and theologians, but to other persons adequately instructed\nin her teaching, full permission to read books which she has placed on\nher black list or _Index_--from which, in other words, she has warned\noff the weaker members of the flock.\n\nThe net of Peter, however, as all very well know, contains a very great\nvariety of fish, and--to vary the metaphor--to the fisherman was given\ncharge not only of the sheep--foolish enough, heaven knows!--but also of\nthe still more helpless lambs. Thus it becomes the duty and the\nprivilege of the successors of the fisherman to protect the sheep and\nthe lambs, and not merely to protect them from wild beasts who may try\nto do harm from without, but quite as much from the wild rams of the\nflock who are capable of doing a great deal of injury from within. In\none of his letters, from which quotation has already been made, the late\nMonsignor Benson sums up, in homely, but vivid language, the point with\nwhich we have just been dealing. \"Here are the lambs of Christ's flock,\"\nhe writes: \"Is a stout old ram to upset and confuse them when he needn't\n... even though he is right? The flock must be led gently and turned in\na great curve. We can't all whip round in an instant. We are tired and\ndiscouraged and some of us are exceedingly stupid and obstinate. Very\nwell; then the rams can't be allowed to make brilliant excursions in all\ndirections and upset us all. We shall get there some day, if we are\ntreated patiently. We are Christ's lambs after all.\"\n\nThe protection of the weak: surely, if it be deemed both just and wise\non the part of the civil government to protect its subjects by\nlegislation in regard to adulterated goods, contagious diseases,\nunhealthy workshops and dangerous machinery, why may not the Church\nsafeguard her children, especially her weaker children, the special\nobject of her care and solicitude, from noxious intellectual foods?\n\nIt is just here that the question of the _Index_ arises. Put briefly,\nthis is a list of books which are not to be read by Catholics unless\nthey have permission to read them--a permission which, as we have just\nseen, is never refused when any good reason can be given for the\nrequest. I can understand the kind of person who says: \"Exactly, locking\nup the truth; why not let everybody read just what they like?\" To which\nI would reply that every careful parent has an _Index Prohibitorius_ for\nhis household; or ought to have one if he has not. I once knew a woman\nwho allowed her daughter to plunge into _Nana_ and other works of that\ncharacter as soon as she could summon up enough knowledge of French to\nfathom their meaning. The daughter grew up and the result has not been\nencouraging to educationists thinking of proceeding on similar lines.\nThe State also has its _Index Prohibitorius_ and will not permit\nindecent books nor indecent pictures to be sold. Enough: let us again\nclear our minds of cant. There is a limit with regard to publications in\nevery decent State and every decent house: it is only a question where\nthe line is drawn. It is obvious that the Church must be permitted at\nleast as much privilege in this matter as is claimed by every\nrespectable father of a family.\n\nWe need not pursue the question of the _Index_ any further, but before\nwe leave it let us for a moment turn to another accusation levelled\nagainst Catholic men of science by anti-Catholic writers, that of\nconcealing their real opinions on scientific matters, and even of\nprofessing views which they do not really hold, out of a craven fear of\necclesiastical denunciations. The attitude which permits of such an\naccusation is hardly courteous, but, stripped of its verbiage, that is\nthe accusation as it is made. Now, as there are usually at least some\nsmouldering embers of fire where there is smoke, there is just one small\nitem of truth behind all this pother. No Catholic, scientific man or\notherwise, who really honours his Faith would desire wilfully to advance\ntheories apparently hostile to its teaching. Further, even if he were\nconvinced of the truth of facts which might appear--it could only be\n\"appear\"--to conflict with that teaching, he would, in expounding them,\neither show how they could be harmonised with his religion, or, if he\nwere wise, would treat his facts from a severely scientific point of\nview and leave other considerations to the theologians trained in\ndirections almost invariably unexplored by scientific men. Perhaps the\nmemory of old, far-off, unhappy events should not be recalled, but it is\npertinent to remark that the troubles in connection with a man whose\nname once stood for all that was stalwart in Catholicism, did not\noriginate in, nor were they connected with, any of the scientific books\nand papers of which the late Professor Mivart was the author, but with\nthose theological essays which all his friends must regret that he\nshould ever have written.\n\nIt may not be waste of time briefly to consider two of the instances\ncommonly brought up as examples when the allegation with which we are\ndealing is under consideration.\n\nFirst of all let us consider the case of Gabriel Fallopius, who\nlived--it is very important to note the date--1523-1562; a Catholic and\na churchman. Now it is gravely asserted that Fallopius committed\nhimself to misleading views, views which he knew to be misleading,\nbecause he thought that he was thereby serving the interest of the\nChurch. What he said concerned fossils, then beginning to puzzle the\nscientific world of the day. Confronted with these objects and living,\nas he did, in an unscientific age, when the seven days of creation were\ninterpreted as periods of twenty-four hours each and the universality of\nthe Noachian deluge was accepted by everybody, it would have been\nsomething like a miracle if he had at once fathomed the true meaning of\nthe shark's teeth, elephant's bones, and other fossil remains which came\nunder his notice. His idea was that all these things were mere\nconcretions \"generated by fermentation in the spots where they were\nfound,\" as he very quaintly and even absurdly put it. The accusation,\nhowever, is not that Fallopius made a mistake--as many another man has\ndone--but that he deliberately expressed an opinion which he did not\nhold and did so from religious motives. Of course, this includes the\nidea that he knew what the real explanation was, for had he not known\nit, he could not have been guilty of making a false statement. There is\nno evidence whatever that Fallopius ever had so much as a suspicion of\nthe real explanation, nor, it may be added, had any other man of science\nfor the century which followed his death.\n\nThen there arose another Catholic churchman, Nicolaus Stensen\n(1631-1686), who, by the way, ended his days as a bishop, who did solve\nthe riddle, giving the answer which we accept to-day as correct, and on\nwhom was conferred by his brethren two hundred years later the title of\n\"The Father of Geology.\" It is a little difficult to understand how the\n\"unchanging Church\" should have welcomed, or at least in no way objected\nto, Stensen's views when the mere entertainment of them by Fallopius is\nsupposed to have terrified him into silence. But when the story of\nFallopius is mistold, as indicated above, it need hardly be said that\nthe story of Stensen is never so much as alluded to.\n\nThe real facts of the case are these: Fallopius was one of the most\ndistinguished men of science of his day. Every medical student becomes\nacquainted with his name because it is attached to two parts of the\nhuman body which he first described. He made a mistake about fossils,\nand that is the plain truth--as we now know, a most absurd mistake, but\nthat is all. As we hinted above, he is very far from being the only\nscientific man who has made a mistake. Huxley had a very bad fall over\n_Bathybius_ and was man enough to admit that he was wrong. Curiously\nenough, what Huxley thought a living thing really was a concretion, just\nas what Fallopius thought a concretion had been a living thing.\n\nAnother extremely curious fact is that another distinguished man of\nscience, who lived three hundred years later than Fallopius and had all\nthe knowledge which had accumulated during that prolific period to\nassist him, the late Philip Gosse, fell into the same pit as Fallopius.\nAs his son tells us, he wrote a book to prove that when the sudden act\nof creation took place the world came into existence so constructed as\nto bear the appearance of a place which had for aeons been inhabited by\nliving things, or, as some of his critics unkindly put it, \"that God hid\nthe fossils in the rocks in order to tempt geologists into infidelity.\"\nGosse had the real answer under his eyes which Fallopius had not, for\nthe riddle was unread in the latter's days. Yet Gosse's really\nunpardonable mistake was attributed to himself alone, and \"Plymouth\nBrethrenism,\" which was the sect to which he belonged, was not saddled\nwith it, nor have the Brethren been called obscurantists because of it.\n\nOf course there is a second string to the accusation we are dealing\nwith. If the scientific man did really express new and perhaps startling\nopinions, they would have been much newer and much more startling had he\nnot held himself in for fear of the Church and said only about half of\nwhat he might have said. It is the half instead of the whole loaf of the\nformer accusation. Thus, in its notice of Stensen, the current issue of\nthe _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ says: \"Cautiously at first, for fear of\noffending orthodox opinion, but afterwards more boldly, he proclaimed\nhis opinion that these objects (_viz._ fossils) had once been parts of\nliving animals.\"\n\nOne may feel quite certain that if Stensen had not been a Catholic\necclesiastic this notice would have run--and far more\ntruthfully--\"Cautiously at first, until he felt that the facts at his\ndisposal made his position quite secure, and then more boldly, etc.\netc.\"\n\nWhat in the ordinary man of science is caution, becomes cowardice in the\nCatholic. We shall find another example of this in the case of Buffon\n(1707-1788) often cited as that of a man who believed all that Darwin\nbelieved and one hundred years before Darwin, and who yet was afraid to\nsay it because of the Church to which he belonged. This mistake is\npartly due to that lamentable ignorance of Catholic teaching, not to say\nthat lamentable incapacity for clear thinking, on these matters, which\nafflicts some non-Catholic writers. Let us take an example from an\neminently fairly written book, in which, dealing with Buffon, the author\nsays: \"I cannot agree with those who think that Buffon was an\nout-and-out evolutionist, who concealed his opinions for fear of the\nChurch. No doubt he did trim his sails--the palpably insincere _Mais\nnon, il est certain par la revelation que tous les animaux ont egalement\nparticipe a la grace de la creation_, following hard upon the too bold\nhypothesis of the origin of all species from a single one, is proof of\nit.\" Of course it is nothing of the kind, for, whatever Buffon may have\nmeant, and none but himself could tell us, it is perfectly clear that\nwhether creation was mediate (as under transformism considered from a\nChristian point of view it would be) or immediate, every created thing\nwould participate in the grace of creation, which is just the point\nwhich the writer from whom the quotation has been made has missed.\n\nThe same writer furnishes us with the real explanation of Buffon's\nattitude when he says that Buffon was \"too sane and matter-of-fact a\nthinker to go much beyond his facts, and his evolution doctrine remained\nalways tentative.\" Buffon, like many another man, from St. Augustine\ndown to his own times, considered the transformist explanation of living\nnature. He saw that it unified and simplified the conceptions of species\nand that there were certain facts which seemed strongly to support it.\nBut he does not seem to have thought that they were sufficient to\nestablish it and he puts forward his views in the tentative manner which\nhas just been suggested.\n\nThe fact is that those who father the accusations with which we have\nbeen dealing either do not know, or scrupulously conceal their\nknowledge, that what they proclaim to be scientific cowardice is really\nscientific caution, a thing to be lauded and not to be decried.\n\nLet us turn to apply the considerations with which we have been\nconcerned to the case of Galileo, to which generally misunderstood\naffair we must very briefly allude, since it is the standby of\nanti-Catholic controversialists. Monsignor Benson, in connection with\nthe quotation recently cited, proclaimed himself \"a violent defender of\nthe Cardinals against Galileo.\" Perhaps no one will be surprised at his\nattitude, but those who are not familiar with his _Life and Letters_\nwill certainly be surprised to learn that Huxley, after examining into\nthe question, \"arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College\nof Cardinals had rather the best of it.\"[28]\n\nNone the less it is the stock argument. Father Hull, S. J., whose\nadmirable, outspoken, and impartial study of the case[29] should be on\neverybody's bookshelves, freely admits that the Roman Congregations made\na mistake in this matter and thus takes up a less favourable position\ntowards them than even the violently anti-Catholic Huxley.\n\nNo one will deny that the action of the Congregation was due to a desire\nto prevent simple persons from having their faith upset by a theory\nwhich seemed at the time to contradict the teaching of the Bible.\nRemember that it was only a theory and that, when it was put forward,\nand indeed for many years afterwards, it was not only a theory, but one\nsupported by no sufficient evidence. It was not in fact until many years\nafter Galileo's death that final and convincing evidence as to the\naccuracy of his views was laid before the scientific world. There can be\nbut little doubt that if Galileo had been content to discuss his theory\nwith other men of science, and not to lay it down as a matter of proved\nfact--which, as we have seen, it was not--he would never have been\ncondemned. Whilst we may admit, with Father Hull, that a mistake was\nmade in this case, we may urge, with Cardinal Newman, that it is the\nonly case in which such a thing has happened--surely a remarkable fact.\nIt is not for want of opportunities. Father Hull very properly cites\nvarious cases where a like difficulty might possibly have arisen, but\nwhere, as a matter of fact, it has not. For example, the geographical\nuniversality of the Deluge was at one time, and that not so very long\nago, believed to be asserted by the Bible; while, on the other hand,\ngeologists seemed to be able to show, and in the event did show, that\nsuch a view was scientifically untenable. The attention of theologians\nhaving been called to this matter, and a further study made of passages\nwhich until then had probably attracted but little notice, and quite\ncertainly had never been considered from the new point of view, it\nbecame obvious that the meaning which had been attached to the passages\nin question was not the necessary meaning, but on the contrary, a\nstrained interpretation of the words. No public fuss having arisen about\nthis particular difficulty, the whole matter was gradually and quietly\ndisposed of. As Father Hull says, \"the new view gradually filtered down\nfrom learned circles to the man in the street, so that nowadays the\npartiality of the Deluge is a matter of commonplace knowledge among all\neducated Christians, and is even taught to the rising generation in\nelementary schools.\"\n\nIn accordance with the wise provisions of the Encyclical\n_Providentissimus Deus_, with which all educated Catholics should make\nthemselves familiar, conflicts have been avoided on this, and on other\npoints, such as the general theory of evolution and the various problems\nconnected with it; the antiquity of man upon the earth and other\nmatters as to which science is still uncertain. Some of these points\nmight seem to conflict with the Bible and the teachings of the Church.\nAs Catholics we can rest assured that the true explanation, whenever it\nemerges, cannot be opposed to the considered teaching of the Church.\nWhat the Church does--and surely it must be clear that from her\nstandpoint she could not do less--is to instruct Catholic men of science\nnot to proclaim _as proved facts_ such modern theories--and there are\nmany of them--as still remain wholly unproved, when these theories are\nsuch as might seem to conflict with the teaching of the Church. This is\nvery far from saying that Catholics are forbidden to study such\ntheories.\n\nOn the contrary, they are encouraged to do so, and that, need it be\nsaid, with the one idea of ascertaining the truth? Men of science,\nCatholic and otherwise, have, as a mere matter of fact, been time and\nagain encouraged by Popes and other ecclesiastical authorities to go on\nsearching for the truth, never, however, neglecting the wise maxim that\nall things must be proved. So long as a theory is unproved, it must be\ncandidly admitted that it is a crime against science to proclaim it to\nbe incontrovertible truth, yet this crime is being committed every day.\nIt is really against it that the _magisterium_ of the Church is\nexercised. The wholesome discipline which she exercises might also be\nexercised to the great benefit of the ordinary reading public by some\ncentral scientific authority, can such be imagined, endowed with the\nright to say (and in any way likely to be listened to): \"Such and such a\nstatement is interesting--even extremely interesting--but so far one\nmust admit that no sufficient proof is forthcoming to establish it as a\nfact: it ought not, therefore, to be spoken of as other than a theory,\nnor proclaimed as fact.\"\n\nSuch constraint when rightly regarded is not or would not be a shackling\nof the human intellect, but a kindly and intelligent guidance of those\nunable to form a proper conclusion themselves. Such is the idea of the\nChurch in the matter with which we have been dealing.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n  [Footnote 23: _Darwiniana_, p. 147.]\n\n  [Footnote 24: See, for example, his _Life and Letters_,\n  i., 307.]\n\n  [Footnote 25: _Hume_, _English Men of Letters Series_, p. 135.]\n\n  [Footnote 26: Of course, it may be argued, no Fellow need have\n  applied for an _imprimatur_; he did it _ex majori cantela_ as\n  the lawyers say. This may be so, but the same applies to the\n  ecclesiastical _imprimatur_.]\n\n  [Footnote 27: The review from which the following quotations\n  are made appeared in _Nature_ on January 24, 1889.]\n\n  [Footnote 28: Vol. ii., p. 113.]\n\n  [Footnote 29: _Galileo and His Condemnation_, Catholic Truth\n  Society of England.]\n\n\n\n\nV. SCIENCE AND THE WAR\n\n\nAmongst various important matters now brought to a sharper focus in the\npublic eye, few, if any, require more careful attention than that which\nis concerned with science, its value, its position, its teachings, and\nhow it should be taught. No one who has followed the domestic\ndifficulties due to our neglect of the warnings of scientific men can\nfail to see how we have had to suffer because of the lax conduct of\nthose responsible for these things in the past.\n\nWithin the first few weeks after the war broke out--to take one\nexample--every medical man was the recipient of a document telling him\nof the expected shortage in a number of important drugs and suggesting\nthe substitutes which he might employ. It was a timely warning; but it\nneed never have been issued if we had not allowed the manufacture of\ndrugs, and especially those of the so-called \"synthetic\" group, to drift\nalmost entirely into the hands of the Badische Aniline Fabrik, and\nkindred firms in Germany. This difficulty, now partly overcome, is one\nwhich never would have arisen but for the deaf ear turned to the\nwarnings of the scientific chemists. British pharmaceutical chemists,\nwith one or two exceptions, had been relying upon foreign sources not\nonly for synthetic drugs but actually for the raw materials of many of\ntheir preparations--such, for example, as aconite, belladonna, henbane,\nall of which can be freely grown--which even grow wild--in these\nislands; even, incredible as it may seem, for foxglove leaves. These\nthings with many others were imported from Germany and Austria. Here\nagain leeway has had to be made up; but it ought never to have been\nnecessary, and now that the war is over steps should be taken to see\nthat it never need be necessary again. The encouragement of British\nherb-gardens and of scientific experiment therein on the best method of\nculture for the raw material of our organic medicines must certainly be\nmatters early taken in hand.\n\nThe classical example of the mortal injury done to British manufacture\nby the British manufacturer's former contempt for the scientific man is\nthat of the aniline dyes, which are so closely associated with the\nsynthetic drugs as to form one subject of discussion. Quite early in the\nwar dye-stuffs ran short, and there was no means of replenishing the\nstock in Britain, nor even in America, these products having formed the\nstaple of a colossal manufacture, with an enormous financial turnover,\nin Germany.\n\nLet us look at the history of these dyes. The first aniline dye was\ndiscovered quite by accident, in 1856, by the late Professor W. H.\nPerkin. He called it \"mauve,\" from the French word for the mallow, the\ncolour of whose flower it somewhat resembled. In 1862 there was an\nInternational Exhibition in London; and those who remembered it and its\npredecessor of 1851 have declared that the case of aniline\ndye-stuffs--for by that time quite a number of new pigments had been\ndiscovered--excited at the later the same attention as that given to the\nKoh-i-noor at the earlier. The invention, out of which grew the enormous\nGerman business already alluded to, and with which has been associated\nthe discovery and manufacture of the synthetic drugs, was entirely\nBritish in its inception and in its early stages. Moreover the raw\nmaterials on which it depended, namely, gas-tar products, were to be had\nin greater abundance in England than anywhere else. Yet, at the time\nwhen the war broke out, this industry had been allowed almost entirely\nto drift into German hands.\n\nHow was this? Let an expert reply. It was due, he tells us, to the\nneglect of \"the repeated warnings which have been issued since that\ntime\" (_viz._ 1880, by which date the Germans had succeeded in capturing\nthe trade in question) \"in no uncertain voice by Meldola, Green, the\nPerkins (father and son), and many other English chemists.\" Further, he\ncontinues, two causes have invariably been indicated for the transfer of\nthis industry to Germany--\"first the neglect of organic chemistry in the\nUniversities and colleges of this country\" (a neglect which has long\nceased), \"and then the disregard by manufacturers of scientific methods\nand assistance and total indifference to the practice of research in\nconnection with their processes and products.\" I remember talking some\ntwenty-five years ago to a highly educated young student of Birmingham\nwho was of German parentage though of English birth. He had just taken\nthe degree of Doctor of Science in London University, and was on the eve\nof abandoning the adopted country of his parents for a position in the\nresearch laboratories of the Badische company, where he would be one\namong a number of chemists, running into hundreds, all engaged in\nresearch on gas-tar products. At that moment the great Birmingham\ngas-company was employing the services of one trained chemist.\n\nSuch was and is the neglect of science by business men. Could it have\nbeen otherwise, considering their bringing up? Let me again be\nreminiscent. I suppose the public school in England (not a Catholic\nschool, for I was then a Protestant) at which I pursued what were\ndescribed as studies did not in any very marked degree differ from its\nsister schools throughout the country. How was science encouraged there?\nOne hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time devoted weekly, not to\nGreek and Latin (that would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the\nwriting of Greek and Latin prose and alleged Greek and Latin verse--that\nwas the amount of time which was devoted to what was called science. I\nsuppose I had an ingrained vocation for science, for it was the only\nsubject, except English composition, in which I ever felt interest at\nschool. If the vocation had not been there, any interest in the subject\nmust necessarily have been slain once for all in me, as I am sure it was\nin scores of others, by the way it was taught; for the instruction was\nconfided to the ordinary form-master, who doled out his questions from a\ntext-book perfunctorily used and probably heartily despised by a man\nbrought up on strict classical or mathematical lines. Our manufacturer\nis brought up in a school of this kind, and it would be a miracle if he\nemerged from it with any respect for science. Things have changed now,\nand for the better, as they have at most of the Universities; but we are\ndealing with the generation of manufacturers of my age who were largely\nresponsible for the neglects now in question. Well, the boy left his\nschool and went to Oxford or Cambridge, neither of which then greatly\nencouraged science. Its followers were, I believe, known as \"Stinks\nMen.\" At any rate it is only comparatively recently that we have seen\nthe splendid developments of to-day in those ancient institutions. One\nrelic of the ancient days gives us an illuminating idea of how things\nused to be, just as a fossil shows us the environment of its day.[30]\nTrinity College, Dublin, has fine provision for scientific teaching, and\na highly competent staff to teach. But in its constitution it shows the\nattitude towards science which till lately informed the older\nUniversities.\n\nTrinity College has in its Fellowship system one of the most important\nseries of pecuniary rewards perhaps in Europe, of an educational\ncharacter. A man has only once to pass an examination, admittedly one of\ngreat severity and competitive in character, and thenceforward to go on\nliving respectably and doing such duties as are committed to him, to be\nensured an excellent and increasing income for life. How great the\nrewards are will be gathered from the fact that a distinguished occupant\nof one of these positions some years ago endeavoured--with complete\nsuccess--to enforce on me the importance of the Fellowship examination\nby telling me that he had already received over L50,000 in emoluments as\na result of his success. He has received a good deal more since, and I\nhope will continue to be the recipient of this shower of gold for many\nyears to come.[31] No doubt much might be urged for this system, which\nwas for a long time popular in China for the selection of Mandarins, and\nI am not criticising it here. What I want to emphasise is that the\nexamination for these valuable positions is either classical or\nmathematical, and there it ends. The greatest biologist in the world\nwould have as much chance of a Fellowship as the ragged urchin in the\nstreet unless he could \"settle Hoti's business\" or elucidate [Greek: P]\nor do other things of that kind. It is a luminous example of what\nwas--must we say is?--thought of science in certain academic circles.\nOf course it may be urged--I have actually heard it urged--that nothing\nis science save that which is treatable by mathematical methods. It was\na kind of inverted M. Jourdain who used this argument, a gentleman who\nimagined himself to have been teaching science during a long life\nwithout ever having effected what he supposed to be his object. Then,\nagain, our manufacturer, whose object in life is to make money, is\nnaturally, perhaps even necessarily, affected by the kind of salaries\nwhich highly trained and highly eminent men of science receive by way of\nreward for their work. Few, if any, receive anything like the emoluments\nattaching to the position of County Court Judge, and I know of only one\ncase in which a Professor's income, to the delight and envy of all the\nteaching profession, actually, for a few years, soared somewhat near the\nempyrean of a Puisne Judge's reward.\n\nPerhaps this is not to be wondered at; for Parliament always contains\nmany lawyers, and at the moment, I think, not a single scientific\nexpert, at least among the Commons. This is not really a sordid\nargument, though it may appear so. The labourer, after all, is worthy of\nhis hire; but in the scientific world it very, very seldom happens that\nthe hire is worthy of the labourer. Even to this day there is plenty of\ntruth in the description of the attitude of Mr. Meagles towards Mr.\nDoyce as detailed by the author of _Little Dorrit_. Perhaps that is\npartly because it is generally the man of business, and not the unhappy\nman of science, who gains the money produced by scientific discoveries.\nThese are often, if not usually, made by accident, and by a man on the\ntrack of something else, on the elucidation of which he is probably so\nintent that he cannot spare time for side-issues, very likely never even\nthinks of them. Sir James Dewar discovered the principle of the \"Thermos\nflask\" whilst he was working at the exceedingly difficult subject of the\nliquefaction of air. I hope Sir James had the prescience to patent his\ndiscovery, and reap the reward which was due to him; but, if he did, he\nis one amongst a thousand who never took this trouble and of whom _Sic\nvos non vobis_ might well be said. When Sabatier had shown the\nimportance of combinations of hydrogen effected by what is known as a\ncatalyst, numerous patents were taken out--by other people, of\ncourse--on which were founded very flourishing businesses. Sabatier\nprofited by none of these--so I understand. He received a Nobel prize\nfor his discoveries; but another hath his heritage.\n\nThough science has not received any great encouragement, yet in spite of\nthat--the cynic might say because of that--it has made amazing progress\nduring the past half-century. Mr. Chesterton somewhere notes that \"a\ntime may easily come when we shall see the great outburst of science in\nthe Nineteenth Century as something quite as splendid, brief, unique,\nand ultimately abandoned as the outburst of art at the Renaissance.\"\nThat, of course, may be so, but as to the outburst there can be no\nquestion, nor of its persistence to the present day. That also is surely\na curious phenomenon; for, as regards most other things, we seem to be\nin the trough of the wave, and not merely in these islands but all over\nthe civilised world. In Art, in Music, in Literature, in the Drama, it\nwould be difficult to argue in favour of a pre-eminence, or even of an\nequality of the present age, comparing it with its predecessors.\n\nTake the politicians of the world; it is perhaps difficult, even\nfoolish, for us who are living with them to prophesy with any\napproximation of accuracy what the historian of a future day may say\nabout them. He may sum them up as respectable, honest mediocrities\ntrying to do their best under exceptionally difficult circumstances; he\nmay put them lower; he may put them higher; he may differentiate between\nthose of different nations; but there is little doubt that, with the\nexception of the American President, he will not be able to point to any\none of the calibre of Pitt or of Bismarck or of the less severely tried\nDisraeli or Gladstone.\n\nBut just the reverse is the case in science, which has men of the very\nfirst rank living, working, and discovering to-day. There are indeed\nsigns that even our Government is cognizant of this. The creation of a\nDepartment of Industrial Scientific Research, the provision of a\nsubstantial income for the same, the increase of research-grants to\nlearned societies, these and other things show that some attempt will be\nmade to recognise the value of science to the State. Further, the\nlesson seems to have gone home to some few at least that there is no\ndifference between what have been absurdly called Pure and Applied\nScience, since so very many \"Applied\" discoveries--such as the\n\"Thermos\"--arose in the course of what certainly would have been\ndescribed as \"Pure\" researches.\n\nIt is to the public advantage that every educated person should know\nsomething about science; nor is this by any means as big or difficult an\nachievement as some may imagine. It is not necessary to teach any very\nlarge number of persons very much about any particular science or group\nof sciences. What is really important is that people should imbibe some\nknowledge of scientific methods--of the meaning of science. This can be\ndone from the study of quite a few fundamental propositions of any one\nscience under a good teacher--a first essential. Any person thus\neducated will, for the remainder of his life, be able at least to\nunderstand what is meant by science and the scientific method of\napproaching a problem. He will not, like an educational troglodyte at a\nrecent Conference, refuse to describe anything as science which is not\ncapable of mathematical treatment, nor allude compendiously to\nphysiological study as \"the cutting up of frogs.\" In a word, he will be\nan educated man, which can no more be said of one ignorant of science\nthan it can be of one whose mind has never experienced the softening\ninfluence of letters.\n\nSo far, everybody whose opinion counts seems to be agreed; but in any\nplea for an extended and improved teaching of science, certain points\nought not to be left out of count. In the first place, science is not\nthe key to all locks; there are many important things--some of the most\nimportant things in life--with which it has nothing whatever to do. It\nwill be well to recall Mr. Balfour's words at the opening of the\nNational Physical Laboratory: \"Science depends on measurement, and\nthings not measurable are therefore excluded, or tend to be excluded,\nfrom its attention. But Life and Beauty and Happiness are not\nmeasurable. If there could be a unit of happiness, politics might begin\nto be scientific.\" It follows that there are a number of subjects on\nwhich the scientific man is just as fit, or as unfit, to express an\nopinion as any other man. The intense preoccupation which serious\nscientific studies demand, may render the man who is engaged therein\neven less competent to express an opinion on alien subjects than one\nwhose attention, less concentrated, has time to range over diverse\nfields of study. Readers of Darwin's _Life_ will remember his confession\nthat he had lost all taste for music, art, and literature; that he\n\"could not endure to read a line of poetry\" and found Shakespeare \"so\nintolerably dull that it nauseated\" him; and finally, that his mind\nseemed \"to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out\nof a large collection of facts.\"\n\nDespite this warning as to the limits of science, we have no lack of\ninstances of scientific men posing as authorities on subjects on which\nthey had no real right to be heard, and, what is worse, being accepted\nas such by the uninstructed crowd. Thus Professor Huxley, who, as some\none once said, \"made science respectable,\" was wont to utter pontifical\npronouncements on the subject of Home Rule for Ireland. His knowledge of\nthat country was quite rudimentary, and his visits to it had been as few\nand as brief as if he had been its Sovereign; but that did not prevent\nhim from delivering judgment, nor unfortunately deter many from\nfollowing that judgment as if it had been inspired. I am not now arguing\nas to the rights and wrongs of Huxley's view on the matter in question:\nI have my own opinion on that. What I am urging is that his position,\nwhether as a zoologist or, incidentally, as a great master of the\nEnglish language, in no way entitled him to express an opinion or\nrendered him a better authority on such a question than any casual\nfellow-traveller in a railway carriage might easily be.\n\nThis is bad enough; but what is far worse is when scientific experts on\nthe strength of their study of Nature assume the right of uttering\njudicial pronouncements on moral and sociological questions, judgments\nsome at least of which are subversive of both decency and liberty. Thus\nwe have lately been told that it is \"wanton cruelty\" to keep a weak or\nsickly child alive; and the medical man, under a reformed system of\nmedical ethics, is to have leave and licence to put an end to its life\nin a painless manner. To what enormities and dastardly agreements this\nmight lead need hardly be suggested; and I am quite confident that the\nmembers of the honourable profession of physic, to which I am proud to\nbelong, have no desire whatever for such a reform of the law or of their\nethics. Then we are told in the same address (Bateson, _British\nAssociation Addresses in Australia_, 1914) that on the whole a decline\nin the birth-rate is rather a good thing, and that families averaging\nfour children are quite enough to keep the world going comfortably. The\ndate of this address will be noted; and the fact that the war, which was\nthen just beginning, has probably caused its author and has caused\neverybody else to see the utter futility of such assertions.\n\nHowever, if we are to rear only four children per marriage, and if we\nare to give the medical man liberty to weed out the weaklings, it\nbehoves us to see that the children whom we produce are of the best\nquality. Let us, therefore, hie to the stud-farm, observe its methods\nand proceed to apply them to the human race. We must definitely prevent\nfeeble-minded persons from propagating their species. Within limits,\nthat is a proposition with which all instructed persons would agree,\nthough few, we imagine, would put their opinions so uncharitably as the\nlecturer did: \"The union of such social vermin we should no more permit\nthan we would allow parasites to breed on our own bodies.\" But we must\ngo farther than this, and introduce all sorts of restrictions on\nmatrimony, until finally it comes to be a matter to be arranged under\nrigid laws by a jury of elderly persons--all, we may feel perfectly\nsure, \"cranks\" of the first water.\n\nIn what _milieu_ are their findings to take effect? It is very important\nto consider that. The author from whom I have been quoting tells us what\nwe want to know. Man, he tells us, is \"a rather long-lived animal, with\ngreat powers of enjoyment, if he does not deliberately forgo them.\" In\nthe past, we are told, \"superstitious and mythical ideas of sin have\npredominantly controlled these powers.\" We have changed all that now; as\nthe parent in _Punch_ says to the crying child by the seashore, \"You've\ncome out to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself you shall!\" So we are to\nplunge into the whirlpool of eugenic delights without any fear of that\n\"bugbear of a hell\" which another writer congratulates us on getting rid\nof. We can, it appears, enter upon our eugenic experiment without a\nsingle moral scruple to restrain us or a single religious restriction to\ninterfere with us. In this soil is the plant to be grown, and the first\nweed to be eradicated is that of the right of personal choice of a\npartner for life, or for such other term as the law under the new\n_regime_ may require. Jack is to be torn from weeping Jill, and handed\nover to reluctant Joan, to whom he is personally displeasing and for\nwhom he has not the slightest desire, and handed over because the\nBreeding Committee think it is likely to prove advantageous for the\nComing Race. All that may be possible--or may not--but what then? When\nyou are carrying out Mendelian experiments on peas, you can enclose your\nflowers in muslin bags and prevent anything interfering with your\nobservations. And in the stud-farm you can keep the occupants shut up.\n\nBut what are you going to do with Jack? and with Jill? And still more\nwith Joan? They cannot be permanently isolated, neither are they\nrestrained by any \"mythical ideas of sin.\" They have been educated to\nthe idea that their highest duty is to enjoy themselves. Why should they\nnot do what they like? And consequently, as any reasoning person can\nsee, \"The Inevitable\" must happen; and where is your experiment and\nwhere the Coming Race? It is perfectly useless for doctrinaires to\nargue, as doctrinaires will, about ethical restraints. Nature has _no_\nethical restraints; and any ethical restraints which man has come from\nthat higher nature of his which he does not share with the lower\ncreation. What those whom the late Mr. Devas so aptly called\n\"after-Christians\" always forget is that the humane, the Christian side\nof life, which they as well as others exhibit, is due to the influence,\nlingering if you like, of Christianity. They ignore or forget the pit\nout of which they were digged.\n\nBy another Eugenist we are told that willy-nilly every sound, healthy\nperson of either sex must get married or at least betake him or herself\nto the business of propagating the race. That at least is the essence of\nhis singularly offensive dictum that since the celibacy of the Catholic\nclergy and of members of Religious Orders deprives the State of a\nnumber of presumably excellent parents, \"if monastic orders and\ninstitutions are to continue, they should be open only to the\neugenically unfit.\"[32] If the religious call is not to be permitted to\ndispense a man or woman from entering the estate of matrimony, it may be\nassumed that nothing else, except an unfavourable report from the\ncommittee of selection, will do so. And, further, as the one object of\nall this is to bring super-children into the world, we must also assume\nthat those who fail in this duty will find themselves in peril of the\nlaw.\n\nSurely what has been set down shows that whatever scientific reputation\nthe writers in question possess, and it is undeniably great, it has not\nequipped them, one will not merely say with moral or religious ideas,\nbut with an ordinary knowledge of human nature. It has not equipped them\nwith any conception apparently of political possibilities; and it has\nleft them without any of that saving salt, a sense of humour. Like\nHuxley, they have started out to give opinions without first having made\nthemselves familiar with the subject on which they were to deliver\njudgment.\n\nIt is perhaps little to be wondered at that the intense preoccupation\nwhich the study of science entails should tend to induce those whose\nattention is constantly fixed on Nature to imagine that from Nature can\nbe drawn not only lessons of physical life but lessons also of conduct.\nOf course this is quite wrong; for Nature has no moral lesson to teach\nus. We are told to go to the ant--at least the sluggard is--but for\nwhat? To amend his sluggardliness. No one has ever suggested that we\nshould go to Nature to learn to be humble, kindly, unselfish, tolerant,\nand Christian, in our dealings with others; and for this excellent\nreason, that none of these things can be learnt from Nature. Science is\nneither moral nor immoral, but non-moral; and, as we have seen a\nthousand times in this present war, its kindest gifts to man can be\nused, and are used, for his cruel destruction. In this war,\npre-eminently amongst all wars, we have the application of pure natural\nprinciples unameliorated by the influences of Christianity, or of\nchivalry, Christianity's offspring. As Sir Robert Borden has summed it\nup, German kultur is an attempt \"to impose upon us the law of the\njungle.\"\n\nNatural Selection, some would have us believe, is the dominant law of\nliving nature, and all would agree that it is an important law. Let us\nthen, if we are to follow Nature, put it into practice. But Natural\nSelection means the Survival of the Fittest in the Struggle for Life. It\nconsequently means the Extermination of the Less Fit, a little fact\noften left out of count. It means in three words \"Might is Right,\" and\nwas not that exactly the proposition by which we were confronted in this\nwar? If Natural Selection be our only guide, let us sink hospital\nships, destroy innocent villages and towns, exterminate our weaker\nopponents in any way that seems best to us. It was all summed up\ncenturies ago by the author of the Book of Wisdom: \"Let us oppress the\npoor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey\nhairs of the aged. But let your strength be the law of justice: for that\nwhich is feeble is found to be nothing worth.\" That is Natural Selection\nin operation in human life when human beings have been stripped of all\n\"mythical ideas of Sin:\" not a pretty picture nor a condition of affairs\nunder which we should like long to exist. Some of the other resemblances\nare less dreadful, but none the less instructive. Let us take the matter\nof Mimicry. There is a form of protective mimicry whereby the living\nthing is like unto its surroundings, and thus escapes its enemy. We find\nit in warfare in the use of khaki dress, in white overalls in snow-time,\nin other such expedients. But there is also a form of Aggressive Mimicry\nin which a deadly thing makes itself look like something innocent, as\nthe wolf tried to look in \"Little Red Riding Hood.\" \"The Germans were\nbeginning their attack on Haumont. Their front-line skirmishers, to\nthrow us into confusion, had donned caps which were a faint imitation of\nour own, and also provided themselves with Red Cross brassards\" (_The\nBattle of Verdun._ H. Dugard). Not to be tedious on this point, which\nreally does not require to be laboured, let me finish with one quotation\nfrom a vivid series of war-pictures. Boyd Cable is writing of men in\nthe trenches: \"Civilised Man, in his latest art of war, has gone back to\nbe taught one more simple lesson by the beast of the field and the birds\nof the air; the armed hosts are hushed and stilled by the passing\nair-machine, exactly as the finches and field-mice of hedgerow and ditch\nand field are frozen to stillness by the shadow of a hovering hawk, the\nbeat of its passing wing.\"\n\nNo; an existence passed under conditions of this kind and as the normal\nstate of affairs is not an existence to be contemplated with equanimity.\nWe are anxious that science and scientific teaching should be assisted\nin every possible way. But let us be quite clear that while science has\nmuch to teach us and we much to learn from her, there are things as to\nwhich she has no message to the world. The Minor Prophets of science are\nnever tired of advising theologians to keep their hands off science. The\nMajor Prophets are too busy to occupy themselves with such polemics. But\nthe theologian is abundantly in his right in saying to the scientific\nwriter \"Hands off morals!\" for with morality science has nothing to do.\nLet us at any rate avoid that form of kultur which consists in bending\nNatural History to the teaching of conduct, uncorrected by any Christian\ninjunctions to soften its barbarities.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n  [Footnote 30: Since these lines were written, this state of\n  affairs has come to an end and the first Fellow has been\n  elected for his purely scientific attainments, in the person of\n  the distinguished geologist, Professor Joly, F.R.S.]\n\n  [Footnote 31: It was the late distinguished Provost, Sir John\n  Mahaffy, at whose instance the change in the Fellowship system\n  was introduced.]\n\n  [Footnote 32: Conklyn, _Heredity and Environment in the\n  Development of Men_. Princeton University Press, 1915.]\n\n\n\n\nVI. HEREDITY AND \"ARRANGEMENT\"\n\n\nSome years ago, when I was delivering a lecture at the Cathedral Hall of\nWestminster, in the course of the questioning which took place at the\ntermination of the discourse, which was on vitalism, I was asked by one\nwho signed his paper, \"So and So, Atheist,\" \"What would you say if you\nsaw a duck come out of a hen's egg?\" I recognised at once the idea at\nthe back of the question and appreciated the fact that it had been asked\nby one who, as some one has said, \"called himself an advanced\nfree-thinker, but was really a very ignorant and vulgar person who was\nsuffering from a surfeit of the ideas of certain people cleverer than\nhimself.\" But, as a full discussion of the matter would have taken at\nleast as long as the lecture which I had just concluded, my reply was\nthat before I attempted to explain it I would wait to see the duck come\nout of the hen's egg, since no man had as yet witnessed such an event. I\ndo not know whether my atheistical questioner was satisfied or not, but\nI heard no more of him. But, after all, is it not a marvellous thing\nthat a duck never does come out of a hen's egg? If everything happens by\nchance, as some would have us believe, why is it that a duck does not\noccasionally emerge from a hen's egg? Surely this is a _miraculum_, a\nthing to be wondered at, yet so common that it goes unnoticed, like many\nother wonderful things which are also matters of common everyday\noccurrence, such as the spinning of the earth on its own axis and its\ncourse round the sun and through the heavens.\n\nIf we pursue this question further we shall begin to remember that\ncreatures more nearly related to one another also \"breed true.\" The hen\nand the duck are both birds, but they are not so nearly allied to one\nanother as the lion and the tiger, both of which are _Felidae_, or cats.\nYet no one ever expects that a tiger will be born of a lioness, or _vice\nversa_. Further, the pug and the greyhound are both of them dogs: the\nname _canis domesticus_ applies to both, and one would be distinguished\nfrom the other in a scientific list as \"Var. (_i.e._ variety) 'pug,'\" or\n\"Var. 'greyhound.'\" Yet one can imagine the surprise of a breeder if a\ngreyhound was born in his carefully selected and guarded kennel of pugs.\nIn a word, not only species, but varieties do tend to breed true; the\nchild does resemble its parent or parents. No doubt the resemblance is\nnot absolute: there is variation as well as inheritance. Sometimes the\nvariation may be recognised as a feature possessed by a grandparent or\neven by some collateral relative such as an uncle or great-uncle;\nsometimes this may not be the case, though the non-recognition of the\nlikeness does not in any way preclude the possibility that the\npeculiarity may have been also possessed by some other member of the\nfamily. But on the whole the offspring does closely resemble its\nparents; that is to say, not only the species and the variety but the\nindividual \"breeds true.\" \"Look like dey are bleedzed to take atter der\npa,\" as Uncle Remus said when he was explaining how the rabbit comes to\nhave a bobtail. Moreover this resemblance is not merely in the great\ngeneral features. Apart from monstrosities, the children of human beings\nare human beings; the children of white parents have white skins, those\nof black progenitors are black. Commonly, though not always by any\nmeans, the children of dark-haired parents are themselves dark-haired,\nand so on. But smaller features are also transmitted, and transmitted\ntoo for many generations; for example, the well-known case of the\nHapsburg lip, visible in so many portraits of Spanish monarchs and their\nnear relatives, and visible in life to-day. Again, there are families in\nwhich the inner part of one eyebrow has the hairs growing upwards\ninstead of in the ordinary way, a feature which is handed on from one\ngeneration to another. Even more minute features than this have been\nknown to be transmissible and transmitted, such as a tiny pit in the\nskin on the ear or on the face. In fact, there is hardly any feature, no\nmatter how small, which may not become a hereditary possession.\n\nIf in-and-in breeding occur, as it may do amongst human beings in a\nlocality much removed from other places of habitation, it may even\nhappen that what may be looked upon as a variety of the human race may\narise, though when it arises it is always easy to wipe it out and\nrestore things to the normal by the introduction of fresh blood, to use\nthe misleading term commonly employed, where the Biblical word \"seed\"\ncomes much nearer to the facts.\n\nThus there is a well-authenticated case in France (in Brittany if I\nremember right) of a six-fingered race which existed for a number of\ngenerations in a very isolated place and was restored to\nfive-fingeredness when an increase in the populousness of the district\npermitted a wider selection in the matter of marriages.\n\nAnd similarly, not long ago an account was published of an albino race\nsomewhere in Canada which had acquired a special name.\n\nPerhaps it has been wiped out by this time by wider marriages, though\nthese might be effected with greater difficulty by albinos than by\nsix-fingered persons. At any rate no one can doubt that it might at any\ntime be wiped out by such marriages, though even when apparently wiped\nout, sporadic cases might be expected to occur: what the breeders call\n\"throws-back,\" when they see an animal which resembles some ancestor\nfurther back in the line of descent than its actual progenitors.\nCertainly the most remarkable instance of the reliance which we have\ncome to feel respecting this matter of inheritance is that which was\nafforded by a recent case of disputed paternity interesting on both\nsides of the Atlantic, since the events in dispute occurred in America\nand the property and the dispute concerning it were in England.\n\nIt was obviously a most difficult and disputable case, but the judge, a\nshrewd observer, noticed, when the putative father was in the box, a\nfeature in his countenance which seemed closely to resemble what was to\nbe seen in the child which he claimed to be his own. A careful\nexamination of the parents and of the child was made by an eminent\nsculptor, accustomed to minute observation of small features of variety\nin those sitting to him as models.\n\nHe reported and showed to the court that there were remarkable features\nin the head of the child which resembled, on the one hand an unusual\nconfiguration in the mother--or the woman who claimed to be the\nmother--and on the other a well-marked feature in her husband. And as a\nresult the father and mother won their case, and were proclaimed the\nparents of the child because of the resemblance of these features; and,\nif we think for a moment, we shall see, because also of the reliance\nwhich the human race has come to place in the fidelity of inheritance,\nof its perfect certainty, so to speak, that a duck will not come out of\na hen's egg, and the fact of this reliance on a generally received truth\nremains, whatever may be said as to the legal aspect of such evidence.\n\nInheritance is a fact recognised by everybody, and the only reason why\nwe refuse to wonder at it is because, like other wonderful yet everyday\nfacts, such as the growth of a great tree from a tiny seed, it _is_ so\neveryday that we have ceased to wonder at it. It is there: we know that.\nBut have we any kind of idea how it comes about? The duck does not, as a\nmatter of common experience, come out of a hen's egg. Why does it come\nout of a duck's egg? Why doesn't it come out, if only rarely, from a\nhen's egg? In other words, do we know what it is that explains\ninheritance or how it is that there is such a thing as inheritance?\nWell, candour obliges me to say that we do not. In spite of all the work\nwhich has been expended upon this question we are totally ignorant of\nthe mechanism of heredity. Nevertheless it will be instructive to glance\nat the theories which have been put forward to explain this matter.\n\nAll living things spring from a small germ, and in the vast majority of\ncases this germ is the product in part of the male and in part of the\nfemale parent. It is therefore natural that we should in the first place\nturn our attention to this germ and ask ourselves whether there is\nanything in its construction which will give us the key of the mystery.\nThere is not, at least there is nothing definite as shown by our most\npowerful microscopes. To be sure there is a remarkable substance, called\nchromatin because of its capacity for taking up certain dyes, which\nevidently plays some profoundly important part in the processes of\ndevelopment. We may suspect that this is the thing which carries the\nphysical characteristics from one generation to another, but we cannot\nprove it; and though some authorities think that it is, others deny it.\nEven if it be, it can hardly be supposed that microscopic research will\never be able to establish the fact, and that for reasons which must now\nbe explained.\n\nLet us suppose that we visit a vast botanic garden, and in the seed-time\nof each of the plants therein contained select from each plant a single\nripe seed. It is clear that, if we take home that collection of seeds,\nwe shall have in them a miniature picture of the garden from which they\nwere culled, or at least we shall be in possession of the potentiality\nof such a garden, for, if we sow these seeds and have the good fortune\nto see them all develop, take root and grow, we shall actually possess a\nreplica of the garden from which they came. Not exactly, it may be\nurged, for the distribution or arrangement of the seeds must have been\ncarefully looked to, if the gardens are to resemble each other otherwise\nthan in the mere possession of identical plants. I admit the truth of\nthis, but cannot for the moment discuss it. At any rate we should have\nthe same plants in both gardens.\n\nOn this analogy, many have suggested that every organ in the body--we\nmust go further, and say that every marked feature in every organ in the\nbody--is represented in the germ by a seed which can grow, under\nfavourable circumstances, into just such another organ or feature of an\norgan. This was the theory put forward by Darwin under the name of\n\"pangenesis,\" and by others under other titles with which it is\nunnecessary to burden these pages. All these theories have been summed\ntogether under the name \"micromeristic,\" that is small-fragmented, or\nagain, \"particulate,\" since they all postulate the existence in the germ\nof innumerable small fragments--seeds--which are capable of growing into\ncomplete plants or organs under favourable circumstances. Again, this,\neven if true, does not by any means exhaust the matter, for it does not\nexplain why the seed of the eye implants itself and grows in the right\nplace in the head instead of making a home for itself, let us say, in\nthe sole of the foot. But again we must pass over that matter.\n\nThere is nothing inherently impossible in this theory; indeed, if we\nallow that the transmission of inheritable characteristics is purely\nmaterial, and it may be, there is only one other conceivable way in\nwhich it can occur. It is true that the seeds must be almost\ninnumerable, but the germ, though small, is capable of accommodating an\nalmost innumerable number of independent factors, if the prevalent views\nas to the constitution of matter are to be believed. And, as it is quite\ninconceivable that we can ever have microscopes which could detect such\nminute objects as the ultimate bricks of which the atom--no, not even\nthe atoms themselves which compose the germ--consists, it is impossible\nthat we should be able to say that the seed-theory is untrue. Even if we\ncould see these ultimate constituents it is in the last degree unlikely\nthat they would have any resemblance to the things which are, on this\ntheory to grow from them, any more than the acorn resembles the oak\nwhich is to spring from it.\n\nBut observe! the germ on this view must contain not only seeds from the\nimmediate parents but from many, perhaps all, of the older generations\nof the family, otherwise how are we to account for the appearance of\nancestral peculiarities which the father and mother do not show?\nMoreover, since very minute things, like the inner angle of the eyebrow,\nmay independently vary, there must be an enormous number of seeds apart\naltogether from the considerations alluded to in the last paragraph. And\nmany authorities who have closely considered the question have come to\nthe conclusion that the complexities introduced would be so great that\nit is impossible to believe in any micromeristic theory.\n\nThen, of course, we must look out for some other explanation, and some\nhave suggested that it is to be found in memory--the memory of the germ\nof what it was once part and the anticipation of what it may once more\nbe. This again is an explanation not susceptible of proof along the\nlines of a chemical experiment, but not necessarily, therefore, untrue.\nOf course there are two ideas as to memory. If we are pure materialists\nand imagine every memory in our possession as something stamped, in some\nwholly incomprehensible manner, on some cell of our brain and looked at\nthere, by some wholly inconceivable agency, when we sit down to think of\npast days, then we must look on the germ, under the \"mnemic\" or memory\ntheory as consisting of fragments each of them impressed with the\n\"memory\" of some particular organ or feature of the body, and lo! we\nfind ourselves back again in micromerism. If we are to take a\nnon-materialistic view of memory we are plunged into a metaphysical\ndiscussion which cannot here be pursued. A third explanation, which by\nthe way explains nothing, is that the whole matter is one of\n\"arrangement,\" to which we shall return at the close of this paper.\n\nThe mechanism of inheritance must either be physical[33] or it must be\nnon-physical; that is, immaterial. This is what emerges from our\ndiscussion, and so far as science goes to-day it must be admitted that\nneither of these explanations can be said to be accepted generally by\nmen of science or proved--perhaps even capable of proof--by scientific\nmethods. If we know little or nothing about the mechanism of\ninheritance, can we and do we know anything about the laws under which\nit works, or has it any laws? Or are its operations a mere\nchance-medley? It is hardly necessary to ask the latter question, for\nchance-medley could not lead to regular operations--operations so\nregular that a court of law may act upon their evidence. Yes: we answer\nto the first question very lightly but without perhaps always thinking\nwhat that affirmative answer implies, a point to be considered in a\nmoment. It may at once be said that we do now know a good deal about\nthe laws under which inheritance works itself out, and that knowledge,\nas most people are now aware, is due to the quiet and for a time\nforgotten labours of Johann Gregor Mendel, once Abbot of the Augustinian\nAbbey of Bruenn, a prelate of that Church which loud-voiced ignoramuses\nare never tired of proclaiming to have been from the beginning even down\nto the present day the impassioned and deadly enemy of all scientific\nprogress. Mendel saw that former workers at inheritance had been\ndirecting their attention to the _tout ensemble_ of an individual or\nnatural object; his idea was analytical in its nature, for he directed\nhis attention to individual characteristics, such as stature or colour,\nor the like. And having thus directed his attention and confined his\nlabours mainly to plants, since the study of generations of most animals\nis too lengthy a process for one man to carry out, he did in fact\ndiscover that there are very definite laws, capable even of numerical\nstatement, under which inheritance acts. There is no need to explain or\ndiscuss them here: suffice it to say that there _are_ such laws,[34] as\nis now admitted by an overwhelming majority of the biologists of to-day.\nMendel's facts were hidden in a somewhat obscure journal; they lay\ndormant, much to his annoyance, during his lifetime. Years after his\ndeath his papers were unearthed, and his discoveries have been\nproclaimed as being as fundamental to biology as those of Newton and\nDalton to other sciences.\n\nThere are, then, laws. That means one of two things: either that these\nlaws arose by chance-medley, or that some one enacted them. It seems\nimpossible, when one surveys the orderly operations of Nature, among\nwhich are those conducted under the laws known by the name of their\ndiscoverer, Mendel--it seems wholly impossible that these operations\narose by chance-medley. To me, at any rate, any such explanation is\nwholly unthinkable. But if it be an impossible explanation, as I and\nmany thousands, not to say millions, of other persons believe, then\nthere is no other way out of it than that these operations must have\nbeen planned by some one; in other words, that there must have been a\nCreator and Deviser of the world.\n\nPeople hide from this explanation, and one of the favourite sandbanks in\nwhich this particular kind of human ostrich plunges its head is\n\"Nature.\" \"Nature does this,\" and \"Nature does that,\" forgetting\nentirely the fact that \"Nature\" is a mere personification and means\neither chance-medley or a Creator, according to the old dilemma. There\nis a very curious example of this inability or unwillingness to\nadmit--perhaps even to understand--the force of this argument exhibited\nby those to whom one would suppose that it would come home with\noverpowering force: I mean, of course, the Mendelians.\n\nThe most learned of these, and one of the most open-minded of men,\nhints in one place that though he does not think it necessary himself to\nbelieve it, yet it might at least be suggested that, if in a certain\norganism we find things so placed that a certain combination is bound to\nemerge in a certain generation, such a state of affairs might have been\nprearranged. Now, if it was prearranged, the awful fact emerges that\nthere must have been an arranger; in other words, a creative power. This\nexplanation is taboo in certain circles. But one may reasonably ask,\n\"What then?\" Is it really suggested that these orderly sets of\noccurrences may occur not once or twice only but thousands and thousands\nof times, and this may all happen by chance? A very distant acquaintance\nwith the mathematics of probability will show that this is a wholly\nuntenable theory. We are generally answered by some purely verbal\nexplanation, like the personification of \"Nature\" already alluded to.\n\nThus, in a recent discussion on inheritance in a Presidential Address to\nthe British Association, to which I have already alluded, the writer\nwith whose explanation I have just been dealing states that he thinks it\n\"unlikely\" that the factors of inheritance are \"in any simple or literal\nsense material particles,\" and proceeds thus: \"I suspect rather that\ntheir properties depend on some phenomenon of arrangement.\" Now, in the\nfirst place, this is no explanation at all, for the mechanism of\ninheritance must be either material or immaterial. If there is a\nphenomenon of \"arrangement\" there must be something to be \"arranged,\"\nand this something can hardly be other than material if it is to be\n\"arranged\" at all. But let that pass. What is far more important is to\nremember that if a thing is to be \"arranged\" there must be somebody to\n\"arrange\" it, for chance-medley cannot \"arrange\" anything in an orderly\nmanner; or if it could do so once, cannot be supposed capable of doing\nit a second time in a precisely similar manner, not to say capable of\ndoing it countless thousands of times.\n\nIf we go into a great museum our first idea, perhaps our last, concerns\nthe arrangement found therein. But it may safely be said that no sane\nperson ever entertained that idea without being perfectly aware that the\narrangement was made by human hands, controlled, in the last resort, by\nthe brain of the curator of the museum. Now, in a sense, the living body\nis a museum containing specimens of different kinds of cells. There are\nbrain-cells, liver-cells, bone-cells, scores of different varieties of\ncells, and all of them, so to speak, are arranged in their appropriate\ncases.\n\nIf we go to the brain-case we can search it through and through without\nfinding a liver-cell, any more than we should find a typical brain-cell\nembedded in the marrow of one of the bones. The different specimens all\noccupy their appropriate positions. How did they get there? The future\nanimal, like animals of all kinds, including man, commences as a single\ncell. All save a few interesting but at present negligible cases are\ncomposed of elements drawn from male and female parents. This cell\ndivides up into a multitude of others. At first these are to all\nappearances identical, but later they begin to differentiate, at first\ninto three classes and afterwards into the multitude of different cells\nof which the body is composed. Further, these groups of cells become\naggregated in appropriate groups, cells of one kind uniting with cells\nof the same kind and with no others. Here we have to do with\narrangement, consummately skilful arrangement, an arrangement which\npractically never fails, for, leaving aside the case of monstrosity, a\nconsideration of which would detain us too long, not merely are the\nvarious cells all placed in their proper positions, as we have seen, but\ntheir aggregation, the individual, is so formed as to belong to the\nproper compartment of that large museum, the world--the same compartment\nas that occupied by his progenitors. Neither the particulate nor the\nchemical theories help us here. The mnemic would, but it has its initial\nand insuperable difficulty, pointed out in another article in this\nvolume, that, as you must have an experience before you can remember it,\nit in no way accounts for the first operation of arrangement. As to the\nmaterial explanations, particulate or chemical, they amount to something\nlike this: you have half a cart-load of bricks from one yard and half a\ncart-load from another, and when the bricks are dumped down in an\nappropriate place they form a little house, just like those occupied by\nthe managers of the brickyards. So they may, but no one in his sense\nsupposes that they will thus arrange themselves of their own power.\nSome one must arrange them. Who arranges the tiny bricks of which the\nanimal body consists, or what arranges them? To revert to our previous\nexample of the garden; suppose that we bring back from that which we\ndesire to copy a bag of seeds representing all the plants which it\ncontains. We have a plot of land of the same size as our example; we dig\nit and we dung it and then we scatter our seeds perfectly haphazard over\nits surface. What are the odds as to their coming up in an exactly\nsimilar pattern to those in the other garden. Mathematicians, I suppose,\ncould calculate the probabilities, but they must be infinitesimally\nsmall. Yet in the case of the animal the pattern is always observed.\n\nIt is quite useless for any one, however eminent an authority he may be,\nto dismiss the matter by saying \"It is a phenomenon of arrangement,\" for\nthat begs the whole question. A Martian visitor taken to Westminster\nAbbey and told that its construction was a \"phenomenon of arrangement\"\nmight be expected to turn a scornful eye upon his cicerone and reply,\n\"Any fool can see that, but who arranged it?\"\n\nHence, though wild horses would not drag such an admission from many, we\nare irresistibly compelled to adopt the theory of a Creator and a\nMaintainer also of nature and its operations--so-called--if we are to\nescape from the absurdities involved in any other explanation. Thus\nthere are very important and fundamental matters to be deduced from the\nvery little which we know about inheritance, just as there are from a\nhundred and one other lines of consideration related to this world and\nits contents. We do not know very much--it may fairly be said we _know_\nnothing as to the vehicle of inheritance. We know a little, but it is\nstill a very little even in comparison with what we may yet come to know\nas the result of careful and long-continued experiment, about the laws\nof inheritance. What we do learn from our knowledge, such as it is, is\nthe fact that we can give no intelligent or intelligible explanation of\nthe facts brought before us except on the hypothesis of a Creator and\nMaintainer of all things.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n  [Footnote 33: A third explanation, that the mechanism of\n  inheritance is of a chemical character, is now being put\n  forward, and some mention of this view, which is by no means\n  one of general acceptance, will be found in another article in\n  this volume.]\n\n  [Footnote 34: An account of them will be found in _A Century of\n  Scientific Thought_, by the present writer, published by\n  Messrs. Burns & Oates.]\n\n\n\nVII. \"SPECIAL CREATION\"\n\n\nProfessor Scott, of Princeton, has recently given to the public in his\nWestbrook Lectures[35] an exceedingly impartial, convincing, and lucid\nstatement of the evidence for the theory of evolution or transformism.\nOn one point of terminology a few observations may not be amiss, since\nthere is a certain amount of confusion still existing in the minds of\nmany persons which can be and ought to be cleared up. Throughout his\nbook Professor Scott contrasts evolution with what he calls \"special\ncreation.\" In so doing he is evidently in no way anxious to deny the\nfact that there is a Creator, and that evolution may fairly be regarded\nas His method of creation. In one passage he expressly states that\n\"acceptance of the theory of evolution by no means excludes belief in a\ncreative plan.\"\n\nAnd again, when dealing with the palaeontological evidence in favour of\nevolution, he points out that Cuvier and Agassiz, examining it as it was\nknown in their day, interpreted the facts as the carrying out of a\nsystematic creative plan, an interpretation which the author claims \"is\nnot at all invalidated by the acceptance of the evolutionary theory.\" He\nis not, we need hardly say, in any way singular in taking up this\nattitude, since it was held by Darwin, by Wallace, by Huxley, and by\nother sturdy defenders of the doctrine of evolution.\n\nYet, just as at the time that Darwin's views were first made public,\nmany thought that they were subversive of Christianity, so, even now,\nsome whose acquaintance with the problem and its history is of a\nsuperficial character, are inclined when they see the word creation,\neven with the qualifying adjective \"special\" prefixed to it, used in\ncontradistinction to evolution, to imagine that the theory of creation,\nand of course of a Creator, must fall to the ground if evolution should\nbe proved to be the true explanation of living things and their\ndiversities.\n\nIt is more than a little difficult for us, living at the present day, to\nunderstand this curious frame of mind; yet it certainly existed, and\nexisted where it might least have been expected to exist. Nor is it\nquite extinct to-day, though it only lingers in the less instructed\nclass of persons. The misconception arose from a confusion between the\nfact and the method of creation. As to the former, no Catholic, no\nChristian, no theist has any kind of doubt; indeed there are those who\ncould not be classified under any of those categories who still would be\nprepared to admit that there must be a First Cause as the explanation\nof the universe. Some of them, whose reasoning is a little difficult to\nfollow, seem to be content with an immanent, blind god, a mere\nmainspring to the clock, making it move, no doubt, but otherwise\npowerless. If we neglect--in a mathematical sense--those who adopt the\nagnostic attitude; content themselves with the formula _ignoramus et\nignorabimus_ of Du Bois Reymond, and confine their investigations to the\nmachine as a going machine without inquiring how it came to be a machine\nor what set it to work, we shall, I think, find that most people who\nhave really thought out the question admit that the only reasonable\nexplanation of things as they are, is the postulation of a Free First\nCause; in other words, an Omnipotent Creator of the universe. Such, of\ncourse, is the teaching of the Scriptures and of the Church, and it must\nbe admitted that neither of them carries us very much further in this\nmatter. In fact, whilst both are perfectly clear and definite about the\nfact of creation, neither of them has much to say about the method. Yet,\nas all admit, evolution concerns only the method and tells us absolutely\nnothing about the cause.\n\nBeing omnipotent, it is obvious that its Maker might have created the\nuniverse in any way which seemed good to Him--for example, all at once\nout of nothing just as it stands at this moment. Such a thing would not\nbe impossible to Omnipotence; and, as we know, Fallopius, suddenly\nconfronted by the problems of fossils in the sixteenth century, did\nsuggest that they were created just as they were, and that they had\nnever been anything else. So did Philip Gosse some two and a half\ncenturies later.\n\nThere is nothing more sure than that the world was not created just as\nit is. Reason and Scripture both teach us that, and geology makes it\nquite clear that the appearance of living things upon the earth has been\nsuccessive; that groups of living things, like the giant saurians, which\nwere once the dominant zoological objects, had their day and have gone,\nas we may suppose, for ever. A few very lowly forms, like the\nlamp-shells, have persisted almost throughout the history of life on the\nearth, but on the whole the picture which we see is one of appearances,\nculminations, and disappearances of successive races of living things.\nThere was a time when Trilobites, crustaceans whose nearest living\nrepresentatives are the King-Crabs, first became features of the fauna\nof the earth. Then they increased to such an extent as to become the\nmost prominent feature. Then they declined in importance, disappeared,\nand for uncounted ages have existed only as fossils. Thus we conclude\nthat the creation of species was a progressive affair, just as the\ncreation of individuals is a successive affair, for every living thing,\ncoming as it does into existence by the power of the Creator, is His\ncreation and in a very real sense a special creation. Now we know very\nwell how living things come into existence to-day; can we form any idea\nas to how they originated in the beginning? Milton, in his crude\ndescription in _Paradise Lost_, pictured living things as gradually\nrising out of and extricating themselves from the soil.\n\n    \"The grassy clods now calved, now half appeared\n    The tawny lion, pawing to get free\n    His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,\n    And rampant shakes his brindled mane; the ounce,\n    The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole\n    Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw\n    In hillocks: the swift stag from underground\n    Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould\n    Behemoth, biggest born of earth, up heaved\n    His vastness.\"\n\nIn this description Milton probably represented the ideas of his day--a\nday penetrated with literal interpretation of the Scripture, though it\nis well to recall to our minds the fact that not one word or idea of the\nabove is contained in the Bible. The only suggestion is that the body of\nAdam was fashioned from the \"slime of the earth,\" the precise meaning of\nwhich phrase has never been defined by the Church.\n\nAgain, we have to say that the Miltonic scheme is not impossible, any\nmore than any other scheme is impossible, but we may further say that it\nis more than improbable, and with every reverence we may add that to us\nit does not seem to be specially consonant with the greatness and wisdom\nof God. There remains the derivative form of creation, compendiously\nstyled evolution. That this also is a possible method of creation no one\nwill deny, and it has been discussed as such by many of the greatest\nthinkers in the history of the Church. We can consider it, therefore,\nfrom the point of fact or of knowledge as we now possess it, and we can\ndo so without imagining that, in so doing, we are contemplating a method\nwhich is anything else but the carrying out of a creative plan, existing\nperfect and complete and from all eternity in the mind of the Being\nWhose conception it was and by whose _fiat_ it came to pass. Moreover,\neach form produced is a special creation, since it was specially\ndesigned to be as it is and to appear when it did, just as the\nclockmaker intends his clock to strike twelve at noon, though he can\nhardly be said to make it strike at that moment. Hence to place special\ncreation in antagonism to evolution is really to use an ambiguous\nphraseology. No doubt it is not easy to find the proper phraseology.\nSome have employed the terms \"immediate\" and \"mediate,\" to which also a\ncertain amount of ambiguity is attached. Perhaps \"direct\" and\n\"derivative\" might convey more accurate ideas; but whatever terminology\nwe adopt, we are still safe in saying that whether God makes things or\nmakes them make themselves He is creating them and specially creating\nthem.\n\nThis is not the place to enter into any elaborate discussion as to the\ntruth of the theory of evolution. Few will be found to deny the\nstatement that it is a theory which _does_ explain Nature as we see it\nand as we learn its history in the past, but that does not necessarily\nprove that it is true. St. Thomas Aquinas, dealing with the movements of\nthe planets, makes a very important statement when he tells us, in so\nmany words, that, though the hypothesis with which he is dealing would\nexplain the appearances which he was seeking to explain, that does not\nprove that it is the true explanation, since the real answer to the\nriddle may be one then unknown to him. There are, however, one or two\npoints it may be useful to consider before we leave the question.\n\nThat evolution may occur within a class seems to be quite certain. The\ncase of the Porto Santo rabbits, one of many cited by Darwin or brought\nto knowledge since his time, will make clear what is meant. Porto Santo\nis a small island, not far from Madeira, on which a Portuguese\nnavigator, named Zarco, let loose, somewhere about the year 1420, a doe\nand a recently born litter of rabbits, which we may feel quite sure\nbelonged to one of those domestic breeds which have all been derived\nfrom the wild rabbit of Europe known to zoologists as _Lepus Cuniculus_.\nThe island was a favourable spot for the rabbits, for there do not\nappear to have been any carnivorous beasts or birds to harry them, nor\nwere there other land mammals competing with them for food; and, as a\nresult, we are told that they had so far increased and multiplied in\nforty years as to be described as \"innumerable.\" In four and a half\ncenturies these rabbits had become so different from any European\nrabbits that Haeckel described them as a species apart, and named it\n_Lepus Huxlei_. This rabbit is much smaller than the European form,\nbeing described as more like a large rat than a rabbit. Its colour is\nvery different from its European relatives; it has curious nocturnal\nhabits; it is exceedingly wild and untamable. Most remarkable of all,\nand most conclusive as to specific difference, Mr. Bartlett, the highly\nskilled head keeper of the London Zoological Gardens, utterly failed to\ninduce the two males which were brought over to those gardens to\nassociate with or to breed with the females of various other breeds of\nrabbits which were repeatedly placed with them. If the history of these\nPorto Santo rabbits had been unknown to us, instead of being a matter as\nto which there can be no doubt, every naturalist would at once have\naccepted them as a separate species. We need not hesitate, it appears,\nto do so and to admit that it is a new species which has been produced\nwithin historic times and under conditions with which we are fully\nacquainted. It may, however, be argued, and quite fairly argued, that\nsuch a process of evolution, though definitely proved, is a very\ndifferent thing from such an evolution as would permit of a common\nancestry for animals so far apart, for example, as a whale and a rabbit,\nor perhaps even nearer in relationship, as between a lion and a seal. To\ndiscuss this further would require a dissertation on the highly involved\nquestion of species and varieties, and that is not now to be attempted.\nWhat, however, may be said is that the difficulties presented by what is\ncalled phylogeny--that is, the relationships of different classes to one\nanother--are so great as to have led more than one man of science to\nproclaim his belief that evolution has been poly--and not\nmono--phyletic. Such is the view which has been enunciated by Father\nWasmann, S.J., whose authority on a point of this kind is paramount. It\nhas also been upheld by Professor Bateson, a man widely separated from\nthe Jesuit in all but attachment to science. Professor Bateson summed up\nhis belief in the text which he placed on the title-page of his first\ngreat work on _Variation_: the text which proclaims that there is a\nflesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, another of fishes.\n\nDarwin remained to the end of his life undecided between the two views,\nfor he allowed his original statement as to life having been breathed\ninto one or more forms by the Creator, to pass from edition to edition\nof the _Origin of Species_. If the polyphyletic theory be adopted, it\nmust be said that the position of the materialist is made far more\ndifficult than it is at present. Let us see what it means. On the\nmaterialistic hypothesis, and the same may be said of the pantheistic or\nany other hypothesis not theistic in nature, a certain cell came by\nchance to acquire the attributes of life. From this descended plants and\nanimals of all kinds in divergent series till the edifice was crowned by\nman. I have elsewhere endeavoured to point out all that is involved in\nthis assumption, which, it must be confessed, is a very large mouthful\nto swallow.\n\nLet us now consider what the polyphyletic hypothesis involves. According\nto this view one cell accidentally developed the attributes of vegetable\nlife; a further accident leads another cell to initiate the line of\ninvertebrates; another that of fishes, let us say; another of mammals:\nthe number varying according to the views of the theorist on phylogeny.\nLet us not forget that the cell or cells which accidentally acquired the\nattributes of life, had accidentally to shape themselves from dead\nmaterials into something of a character wholly unknown in the inorganic\nworld. If one seriously considers the matter it is--so it seems to\nme--utterly impossible to subscribe to the accidental theory of which\nthe immanent god--the blind god of Bergson--is a mere variant. One must\nagree with the late Lord Kelvin that \"science positively affirms\ncreative power ... which (she) compels us to accept as an article of\nbelief.\" But what are we to say with regard to the series of repeated\naccidents which the polyphyletic hypothesis would seem to demand? Is it\nreally possible that any man could bring himself to place credence in\nsuch a marvellous series of occurrences? Monophyletic or polyphyletic\nevolution, whichever, if either, it may have been, presents no\ndifficulty on the creation hypothesis.\n\nThe Divine plan might have embraced either method. It is not merely\nrevelation but ordinary reason which shows us that the wonderful things\nwhich we know, not to speak of the far more wonderful things at which we\ncan only guess, cannot possibly be explained on any other hypothesis\nthan that of a Free First Cause--a Creator.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n  [Footnote 35: _The Theory of Evolution._ By William Berryman Scott.\n  New York: The Macmillan Co.]\n\n\n\n\nVIII. CATHOLIC WRITERS AND SPONTANEOUS GENERATION\n\n\nThe names of great Catholic men of science, laymen like Pasteur and\nMueller, or ecclesiastics like Stensen and Mendel, are familiar to all\neducated persons. But even educated persons, or at least a great\nmajority of them, are quite ignorant of the goodly band of workers in\nscience who were devout children of the Church. Nothing perhaps more\nfully exemplifies this than the history of the controversy respecting\nthe subject whose name is set down as the title of this paper. For\ncenturies a controversy raged at intervals around the question of\nspontaneous generation. Did living things originate, not merely in the\npast but every day, from non-living matter? When we consider such things\nas the once mysterious appearance of maggots in meat it is not wonderful\nthat in the days before the microscope the answer was in the\naffirmative.\n\nTo-day the question may be considered almost closed. True, the negative\nproposition cannot be proved, hence it is impossible to say that\nspontaneous generation does not take place. However, the scientific\nworld is at one in the belief that so far all attempts to prove it have\nfailed utterly.\n\nSt. Thomas Aquinas had a celebrated and sometimes misunderstood\ncontroversy with Avicenna, a very famous Arabian philosopher. It was a\nphilosophical, but not strictly scientific, controversy, for both\npersons accepted or assumed the existence of spontaneous generation.\nAvicenna claimed that it took place by the powers of Nature alone,\nwhilst St. Thomas adopted the attitude which we should adopt to-day,\nwere spontaneous generation shown to be a fact, namely, that if Nature\npossessed this power, it was because the Creator had willed it so.\n\nWe come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668, when\nFrancesco Redi (1626-1697) published his book on the generation of\ninsects and showed that meat protected from flies by wire gauze or\nparchment did not develop maggots, whilst meat left unprotected did.\nFrom this and from other experiments he was led to formulate the theory\nthat in all cases of apparent production of life from dead matter the\nreal explanation was that living germs from outside had been introduced\ninto it. For a long time this view held the field. Redi was, as his name\nindicates, an Italian, an inhabitant of Aretino, a poet as well as a\nphysician and scientific worker. He was physician to two of the Grand\nDukes of Tuscany and an academician of the celebrated _Accademia della\nCrusca_. Those works which I have been able to consult on the subject\nsay nothing about his religion, but there can scarcely be any doubt\nthat he was a Catholic. At any rate there is no doubt whatever as to the\nother persons now to be mentioned in connection with the controversy,\nwhich again became active about a century after Redi had published his\nbook. The antagonists on this occasion were both of them Catholic\npriests, and both of them deserve some brief notice.\n\nJohn Turberville Needham (1713-1781) was born in London and belonged on\nboth sides to old Catholic families. He was educated at Douay and\nordained priest at Cambray in 1738. After teaching in that place for\nsome time he journeyed to England and became head-master of the once\ncelebrated school for Catholic boys at Twyford, near Winchester. From\nthere he went for a short time to Lisbon as professor of philosophy in\nthe English College. Subsequently he travelled with various Peers making\n\"the grand tour.\" After that he retired to Paris, where he was elected a\nmember of the _Academie des Sciences_. He was the first director of the\nImperial Academy in Brussels; a canon, first of Dendermonde and\nafterward of Soignies. He died in Brussels and was buried in the Abbey\nof Condenberg. Needham was a man of really great scientific attainments,\nand perhaps nothing proves the estimation in which he was held more than\nthe fact that in 1746 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,\nbeing the first Catholic priest to become a member of that distinguished\nbody. When one remembers the attitude at that time, and much later, of\nEnglishmen towards Catholics it is clear that Needham's claims to\ndistinction must have been more than ordinarily great. His clear, firm\nsignature is still to be seen in the charter-book of the society, and it\nis interesting to note that he signs his name \"Turberville Needham.\"\nNeedham did not confine his attention to science, for he was an ardent\nantiquary, and in 1761 was elected a Fellow of that other ancient and\nexclusive body, the Society of Antiquaries of London. In this connection\nit may be mentioned that Needham published, in 1761, a book which caused\na great sensation, for he endeavoured to show that he could translate an\nEgyptian inscription by means of Chinese characters; in other words,\nthat the forms of writing were germane to one another. He was shown to\nbe quite wrong by some of the learned Jesuits of the day, who, with the\nassistance of Chinese men of letters, proved that the resemblances to\nwhich Needham had called attention were merely superficial.\n\nBut our interest now is in his controversy with Spallanzani. Lazaro\nSpallanzani (1729-1799) was born at Scandiano in Modena and educated at\nthe Jesuit College at Reggio di Modena. There was some question as to\nhis entering the Society; he did not do so, however, but repaired to the\nUniversity of Bologna, where his kinswoman, Laura Bassi, was then\nprofessor of physics. He became a priest, but devoted his life to\nteaching and experimenting. He must have been something of what we in\nIreland used to call a \"polymath,\" for he professed at one time or\nanother, in various universities, logic, metaphysics, Greek, and\nfinally natural history. He first explained the physics of what children\ncall \"ducks and drakes\" made by flat pebbles on water; laid the\nfoundations of meteorology and vulcanology, and is perhaps best of all\nknown in connection with what is termed \"regeneration\" in the earthworm\nand above all in the salamander. His experiments still hold the field in\na region of study which has vastly extended itself in recent years,\nbecoming of prime importance in the vitalistic controversy.\n\nIn the dispute, however, with which we are concerned Needham and\nSpallanzani defended opposite positions. The former, as the result of\nhis observations, asserted that, in spite of the boiling and sealing up\nof organic fluids, life did appear in them. His opponent claimed that\nNeedham's experiments had not been sufficiently precise. The latter had\nenclosed his fluids in bottles fitted with ordinary corks, covered with\nmastic varnish, whilst Spallanzani, employing flasks with long necks\nwhich he could and did seal by heat when the contents were boiling,\nshowed that in that case no life was produced. He declared, and\ncorrectly too, as we now know, that Needham's methods did permit of the\nintroduction of something from without. The controversy went to sleep\nagain until the discovery of oxygen by Priestley in 1774. When it had\nbeen shown that oxygen was essential to the existence of all forms of\nlife, the question arose as to whether the boiling of the organic fluids\nin the earlier experiments had not expelled all the oxygen and thus\nprevented the existence and development of any life.\n\nIn the further experiments which this query gave rise to, we meet with\nanother illustrious Catholic name, that of Theodor Schwann, better known\nas the originator of that fundamental piece of scientific knowledge, the\ncell-theory. Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) was born at Neuss and educated\nby the Jesuits, first at Cologne, afterward at Bonn. After studying at\nthe Universities of Wuerzburg and Berlin he became professor in the\nCatholic University of Louvain, where his name was one of the principal\nglories of this now wrecked seat of learning. Thence he went as\nprofessor to Liege, where he died. He was, says his biography in the\n_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, \"of a peculiarly gentle and amiable character\nand remained a devout Catholic throughout his life.\" Schwann's\nexperiments tended to show that the introduction of air--of course\ncontaining oxygen--did not lead to the production of life, if the air\nhad first been thoroughly sterilised. It was thought that this question\nhad been finally answered, when it was reopened by Pouchet, in 1859. He\nwas a Frenchman, the director of the Natural History Museum of Rouen,\nbut as to his religious views I have no information. It is quite\nprobable, however, that he was a Catholic. Pouchet and all on his side\nwere finally--so far as there can be finality in such a matter--disposed\nof by Pasteur, of whose distinction as a man of science and devoutness\nas a Catholic nothing need be said.\n\nIt is quite unnecessary to devote any consideration here to the\ncharacter of Pasteur's experiments, for they have become a matter of\ncommon knowledge to all educated persons. Let it suffice to say that\nthey were on the lines first laid down by Redi and greatly elaborated by\nSpallanzani, namely the exclusion from the fluids or other substances\nunder examination of all possible contamination by minute organisms in\nthe air. Spallanzani knew nothing of these organisms; they were not\ndiscovered until many years after his death. But he surmised that there\nwas something which brought corruption into the fluids; he excluded that\nsomething, with the result that the fluids remained untainted. From our\npoint of view, however, there are several things to be learnt. In the\nfirst place quite a number of ignorant persons have thought that the\ndiscovery of spontaneous generation would upset religious dogmata. That\nof course is quite absurd. From what has been said above it will be seen\nthat St. Thomas Aquinas--in common with all the men of learning of his\nday--fully believed in it, as did Needham, another ecclesiastic as to\nwhose orthodoxy there is no doubt. Further, the entire controversy is a\ncomplete confutation of the false allegation that between Catholicism\nand science there is a great gulf set. There have been few longer and\nmore remarkable controversies in the history of science, and scarce any\nother--if indeed any other--which has such important bearings upon\nhealth and industry than that which relates to bio- or abio-genesis. It\nis significant to find that the names of so many of the protagonists in\nthis controversy were those of men who were also convinced adherents of\nthe Catholic Church.\n\n\n\n\nIX. A THEORY OF LIFE[36]\n\n\nOf the making of books on the question of Vitalism there would seem to\nbe no end; and, following upon quite a number of others comes this\nhandsome, well-illustrated, intensely interesting book, by one whose\nwritings are always worth study. It purports to deal with the Origin and\nEvolution of Life; but, as to the first, it leaves us in no way advanced\ntowards any real explanation of that problem on materialistic lines. As\nto the second, though there is a vast amount of valuable information,\noften illuminating and suggestive, again we confess that we fail to\ndiscover any real philosophy of that process of evolution which the\nauthor postulates. These propositions we must now proceed to justify. We\ncan consider them from the most rigidly scientific standpoint, since, if\nevery word or almost every word in the book were proved truth, it would\nnot make the slightest difference to Catholic Philosophy, nor, indeed,\nto Theistic teachings, since in the imperishable words of Paley: \"There\nmay be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind\nanother, between what we observe of nature and the Deity; but there\nmust be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what\nwe see; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an intelligent\ndesigning Author.\"\n\nThe scientific writer has to remember that whilst he may explain many\nthings, his work is a torso unless and until he has either accepted the\nCreator as the first Cause, which he is too often disinclined to do, or\nhas supplied an equally satisfactory explanation, which he is\npermanently unable to do. On the other hand, at least some defenders of\nTheism in the past might well have borne in mind that, whilst we are\nassured of the fact of Creation, we know absolutely nothing of its\nmechanism save that it came about by the command of God. There is\nnothing in which clear thinking and clear writing are more necessary\nthan in discussions of this kind; and too many of them are vitiated by\nan obvious lack of philosophical training on the part of the\nparticipants. Even in this carefully written book there are instances of\nthis kind of thing to which we must allude before considering its main\narguments.\n\n\"We know, for example, that there has existed a more or less complete\nchain of beings from monad to man, that the one-toed horse had a\nfour-toed ancestor, that man has descended from an unknown ape-like form\nsomewhere in the Tertiary.\" \"We _know_\"--that is exactly the opposite of\nthe truth. We _know_ a thing when it is susceptible of proof according\nto the rigid rules of formal logic; when, to doubt it, would be to give\nrise to a suspicion as to our sanity; then we _know_ a thing, but not\nuntil then. Now, as to the sentence quoted, we may allow the first part\nto pass unchallenged with some possible demur at the use of the word\n\"chain.\" The second so-called piece of knowledge was doubted by no less\nan authority than the late Adam Sedgwick. The third assertion plainly\nand distinctly is not the case; for Science _knows_ nothing whatsoever\nabout the origin of man's body. In 1901 Branco, a distinguished\npalaeontologist, with no Theistic leanings as far as we know, told the\nworld that man appears on our planet as \"a genuine _homo novus_,\" and\nthat palaeontology \"knows no ancestors of man.\" Nor has any discovery\nsince that date necessitated the modification of that opinion. What the\nwriter means by saying \"_We_ know\" is \"_I_ am convinced\"; but, with the\ndeepest respect for his undoubted position, the two things are not quite\nidentical. \"Biology, like theology, has its dogmas. Leaders have their\ndisciples and blind followers.\" Wise words! They are those of the author\nwith whom we are dealing. To say \"we know\" when really we only surmise\nis a misuse of language, just as it is also a misuse to ask the question\n\"Does nature make a departure from its previously ordered procedure and\nsubstitute chance for law?\" since the ordinary reader is all too apt to\nforget that \"Nature\" is a mere abstraction, and that to speak of Nature\ndoing such or such a thing helps us in no way along the road towards an\nexplanation of things.\n\nOr again: \"So far as the _creative_ power of energy is concerned, we are\non sure ground.\" The author has a careful note on the word creation (p.\n5), \"the production of something new out of nothing,\" under which\ndefinition it is abundantly clear that energy, whilst it may be\n_productive_, cannot be _creative_. In fact, nothing can be _creative_\nin any definite and rigid sense, save a _Creator_ Who existed from all\neternity and from Whom all things arose. One more instance of loose\nargumentation, and we can turn to the main purport of the book. It is a\nlink in the author's \"chain\" which cannot be passed without examination.\nEverybody is familiar with the method of proof by elimination. We set\ndown every possible explanation of a certain occurrence; we rule out one\nafter the other until but one is left. If we really have set down all\nthe possible explanations, and if we are quite clear as to the fact that\nall those which have been excluded are legitimately put out of court,\nthen the one remaining explanation must be the true one. It is a method\nof proof which has frequently been applied to the vitalistic problem,\nand with the greatest effect, as it is admitted by some of those who\nwould greatly like to find a materialistic explanation for that problem\n(cf. _The Philosophy of Biology_, Johnstone, p. 319).\n\nLet us see how our author employs it. What, he asks, is \"the internal\nmoving principle\" in living substance? And he replies: \"We may first\nexclude the possibility that it acts either through supernatural or\nteleological interposition through an externally creative power.\" Very\nwell! Philosophers tell us that we can assume any position we choose for\nthe purposes of our argument, but that ultimately we must prove that\nassumption or admit ourselves beaten. We look anxiously for the proof of\nthe assumption made by our author, but absolutely no attempt is made to\ngive one. We must be pardoned, therefore, if we hesitate to accept such\nan important statement on his mere _ipse dixit_. We pass on to the next\nelimination: \"Although its visible results are in a high degree\npurposeful, we may also exclude as unscientific the vitalistic theory of\nan _entelechy_[37] or any other form of internal perfecting agency\ndistinct from known or unknown physio-chemical energies.\" Why\n\"unscientific\"? Numbers of high authorities have not thought it so; and\nin quite recent years such eminent writers as Driesch and McDougal have\nwritten erudite works to prove this \"unscientific\" hypothesis. Is there\nany proof brought forward for _this_ assertion and its corresponding\nelimination?\n\nLet us continue the quotation: \"Since certain forms of adaptation which\nwere formerly mysterious can now be explained without the assumption of\nan entelechy we are encouraged to hope that all forms may be thus\nexplained.\" The author does not tell us what the mysterious adaptations\nare, nor does he offer us the explanations which, in his opinion,\nexplain them. We cannot, therefore, criticise his views, and can only\nremind his readers that, because an explanation plausibly explains an\noccurrence, it is by no means always therefore certain to be the true\nexplanation; it may, indeed, be wholly false.\n\nFurther, those who have been wandering for the past half-century in the\nfields of science have become a little wearied of \"explanations,\"\nvaunted, for periods of five or ten years, as the key to open all locks,\nand then cast into the furnace. What the author would seem to mean by\nhis statement is this: \"I am convinced myself that we can do without a\n'supernatural' explanation, and I regard as 'unscientific' any\nexplanation which cannot be put to the test of chemistry and physics;\nhence I must shut the door on anything like an _entelechy_, and, that\nbeing so, it behoves me to look for some other explanation.\" Of course,\nwe are putting these words into the mouth of our author; if we were\ndealing with the matter ourselves we should be inclined to argue that,\nby the eliminatory method, chemistry and physics do prove, or do help to\nprove, the existence of an entelechy.\n\nWith these expostulations we may turn to the writer's pronouncements on\nthe vitalistic question which seem to us to be worthy of serious\nconsideration. Everybody knows that there are two very diverse opinions\non this topic; the one that there is, the other that there is not\nsomething more--a _plus_--in living than there is in not-living\nobjects. In other words, that there is a difference of kind, and not\nmerely of degree, between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the schools of\nthought called vitalistic and mechanistic. To most persons it has up to\nnow seemed impossible that there could be a third school; we appeared to\nbe confronted with what the logicians call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn\nseems to us to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear on this\nmatter. If we are to \"reject the vitalistic hypotheses of the ancient\nGreeks, and the modern vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others,\"\nand if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he thinks we must, the\ncosmos as one of \"limitless and _ordered_ energy\"--we have emphasised\nthe word \"_ordered_\" for reasons which will shortly appear--we must\nclearly look out for some middle way. \"_Ordered_,\" a purely mechanistic\nand materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. \"_Ordered_\" conditions\nare determined by what we agree to call \"Laws\"; and these, as all must\nadmit, entail a Lawgiver.\n\nThe alternative is Blind Chance; and the author, after considering the\nquestion, agrees, as again most reasonable persons will agree, that\nBlind Chance is no explanation of things as they are. He quotes a modern\nchemist who, discussing the probability of the environmental fitness of\nthe earth for life being a mere chance process, remarks: \"There is, in\ntruth, not one chance in countless millions of millions that the many\nunique properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and especially of\ntheir stable compounds, water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make up\nthe atmosphere of a new planet, should simultaneously occur in the three\nelements otherwise than through the operation of a natural law which\nsomehow connects them together. There is no greater probability that\nthese unique properties should be without due cause uniquely favourable\nto the organic mechanism\" (J. J. Henderson, 1913).\n\nIf neither of the classic points of view is tenable, what then is the\nexplanation, if, indeed, any be possible? The author casts one brief\nglance down that blind-alley marked \"Element Way.\" Does some known\nelement or some unknown element, to which the name _Bion_ might be\ngiven, exist and form the source of the energy in living things? Radium\nhas only been known to us for a few years; can we say that there is no\nsuch thing as Bion? Of course we cannot; but this we can say, that, if\nthere is such an element and if it is really responsible for all the\nprotean manifestations of life, wonderful as radium and its doings are,\nthey must sink into nothingness beside those of this new and unsuspected\nentity. The author evidently does not think that this path is a\nprofitable one to pursue, and we agree with him; so he turns his\nattention to the question of energy. Energy is the capacity for doing\nwork. It is often, of course, latent, as, for example, in a cordite\ncartridge, which is a peaceful, harmless thing until the energy stored\nup in it is realised with the accompanying explosion and work is done.\nIt is the same with a bent spring; a clock-weight when the clock is not\ngoing, and so on.\n\nWe need not develop this matter further; but one point must be alluded\nto, namely, the gradual exhaustion of the available energy in the\nchanges from one manifestation to another. In all physical processes\nheat is evolved, which heat is distributed by conduction and radiation\nand tends to become universally diffused throughout space. When complete\nuniformity has been attained, all physical phenomena will come to an\nend; in other words, our solar system must come to an end, and it must\nhave had a beginning. It is a well-known argument. Is there anything to\nrewind the clock which is running down before our very eyes? It was once\nurged that stellar collisions, and such-like things, might permit us to\npostulate a cyclical arrangement (and thus rearrangement) of universal\nphenomena; but that hypothesis does not seem to find any supporters\nto-day.\n\nIn his interesting book, already mentioned, Dr. Johnstone called\nattention to the power possessed by living matter of reversing the\nprocess; but no reversal of this kind and extent can make up for the\nconstant degradation of energy which is taking place all round us. We\nmention this because it shows that \"energy\" cannot, in any case, afford\nan eternal solution, but only a temporal and therefore a limited one. No\none doubts that there is energy in the living thing, nor that there are\nwhat the author calls \"complexes of energies.\" No one, again, will\nquarrel with the statement that energy is first seen in the sun, in the\nearth, in the air, and in the water; that \"with life something new\nappears in the universe, namely, a union of the internal and external\nadjustment of energy which we appropriately call an _Organism_.\" That\n\"the germ is an energy complex\" is no doubt an unproved hypothesis, as\nhe admits, but is quite likely. With all these assertions we may agree,\nthough we cannot with that which follows, namely, that energy is\ncreative, for that such is impossible in any true sense of that word we\nhave already tried to show.\n\nWe have now to ask ourselves in what way this energy conception of life\ndiffers from, or goes beyond, the two theories of life--mechanistic and\nvitalistic, which have hitherto been supposed to have exhausted the\npossibilities of explanation. In order to do this we must analyse the\nauthor's idea of energy and its relationship to biological processes a\nlittle more closely. He begins his study of life and its evolution by\nconsidering how nutrition and the derivation of energy can have taken\nplace before chlorophyl had come into existence; and he very pertinently\npoints to the _prototrophic_ bacteria as probably representing \"the\nsurvival of a primordial stage of life chemistry.\" Thus a \"primitive\nfeeder,\" the bacterium _Nitrosomonas_, \"for combustion ... takes in\noxygen directly through the intermediate action of iron, phosphorus or\nmanganese, each of the single cells being a powerful little chemical\nlaboratory which contains oxidising catalysers, the activity of which\nis accelerated by the presence of iron and manganese. Still, in the\nprimordial stage, _Nitrosomonas_ lives on ammonium sulphate, taking its\nenergy (food) from the nitrogen of ammonium and forming nitrates. Living\nsymbiotically with it is _Nitrobacter_, which takes its energy (food)\nfrom the nitrates formed by _Nitrosomonas_, oxidising them into\nnitrates. Thus these two species illustrate in its simplest form our law\nof the _interaction of an organism_ (_Nitrobacter_) _with its life\nenvironment_ (_Nitrosomonas_)\" (p. 82, author's italics).\n\nOnce one has got to this stage, it is _ex hypothesi_ easy to ascend\nthrough the vegetable and animal worlds and to formulate the various\nlaws which appear to have shaped the evolution of life and of species.\nWe are then \"within the system,\" but to arrive at anything worthy of the\nname of an explanation we have first to _get_ within the system. Even\nthen there remains over the task of explaining how the system comes to\nbe there to get inside of. The writer talks of his example as \"the\nsimplest form.\" Yet, in his own words, it is a \"_powerful little\nchemical laboratory_,\" well stocked with catalysers and other potent\nmeans for carrying on its work. \"Simple\"! Well, no doubt comparatively\nsimple, but in reality complex almost beyond the power of words to\ndescribe. \"A chemical laboratory\"! Yes; and one which performs most\ndelicate operations. \"Well stocked with catalysers\"! And what are they?\nMost wonderful things which induce change without themselves undergoing\nany; discoveries of quite recent date as to which we still know but\nlittle. \"Simple\" seems hardly the word to apply, save in strict relation\nto other and higher forms. How did this laboratory come into existence?\nIn what way did it learn to do its work? How did catalysers come to be?\nWas all this mere chance-medley? It is Paley's example of the watch\nfound on the heath once more. Does it help us in any way to talk about\n\"energy\" and \"complexes\" of energy and \"the creative force of energy\"?\nTo us it does not seem to advance matters one little bit. Either these\noperations of _Nitrosomonas_ are determined or they are not; either they\nare the result of a law or they are the result of blind chance; in\neither case the energy which is involved must act according to the\nconditions ordered or not ordered. In other words: if it is the dominant\nfactor, as the writer would lead us to suppose; if there is \"direction,\"\nthen the action of energy must be directive; and, if it is directive, in\nwhat possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old _entelechy_\nor _vital principle_, or whatever else one may choose to call it? On the\nother hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything\nhappens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy\nsave us from complete surrender to that theory?\n\nFrom all this it would appear that whilst energy is constantly being\nexhibited (and in all sorts of manifestations) by the living object,\nthat does not explain anything, since it does not explain how energy\noriginally came to be, nor how it came to work under the laws which\nseem to govern it. It is one more added to the long list of\n\"explanations,\" which hopelessly break down because those who have put\nthem forward have never apparently applied themselves to the task of\ngrasping the important difference between a final and an intermediate\ncause.\n\nLet us sum up this part of our author's teaching in the light of this\ndistinction. The organism is a material complex, and all sorts of\nactions and reactions take place in it. They are subject to the laws of\nphysics, and notably to those relating to energy and its\ntransformations. It has internal energies which must be adjusted to one\nanother and not less to those around it; that is to say, it must be more\nor less in harmony with its environment. There are the problems of\ngerm-plasm, and its transmission; the effect on it, if any, of the body,\nand the reaction of the body to its environment. There are also the\ncatalysers of which we have spoken, with many problems associated with\nthem, and throwing a possible and unexpected light on the vexed question\nof Vitalism and the Conservation of Energy. There are all these things,\nmanifestations of energy; there is the watch, and it is going. But, as\nwe remarked elsewhere, the fact that we have learned that the resiliency\nof the spring in the watch makes it \"go\" does not exhaust the\nexplanation of the watch any more than the fact that we know something\nof the actions and reactions of energy in the organism exhausts its\nexplanation. The watch is \"going\"; so is the organism. Each of them, in\na sense, is a \"wonderful little laboratory\" in which manifestations of\nenergy are constantly taking place. The watchmaker constructed the watch\nfor that purpose; who or what constructed the organism? Darwin and the\nDarwinians would have said--Natural Selection. In fact, Darwin rather\nlamented that \"the old argument from design in nature, as given by\nPaley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails now that\nthe law of Natural Selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue\nthat, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have\nbeen made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man.\nThere seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings,\nand in the action of Natural Selection, than in the course which the\nwind blows.\" There again Darwin fell into a mistake, because he confused\nan intermediate with a final cause. Even if Natural Selection were all\nthat the most ultra-Darwinian could claim it to be, it could not, as\nDriesch and others have shown, exhaust the explanation of the organism.\n\nAs a matter of fact the world of science is very far from thinking of\nNatural Selection as anything more than a factor, perhaps even a minor\nfactor, in evolution. The author of the work with which we are dealing\ntells us that \"Darwin's law of selection as a natural explanation of the\norigin of _all_ fitness in form and function has lost its prestige at\nthe present time, and all of Darwinism which now meets with universal\nacceptance is the _law of the survival of the fittest_, a limited\napplication of Darwin's great idea as expressed by Herbert Spencer.\" But\nlet that pass. In another place the author makes it clear that the\nexplanations of to-day, including his own, do _not_ exhaust the subject,\nfor he says \"it is incumbent on us to discover the _cause_ of the\norderly origin of every character. The nature of such a law we cannot\neven dream of at present, for the causes of the majority of vertebrate\nadaptations remain wholly unknown.\" In any case we must account for\nNatural Selection; for if it is a Law--as some doubt--it must have had a\nLawgiver. The watch must have been an Idea in some one's mind before it\nbecame an accomplished fact, and Natural Selection or any other \"Law of\nNature\" must--unless all reason is nonsense and all nonsense\nreason--also have been an Idea before it became a factor. Whose Idea?\nOur author does not help us to answer this question. On the contrary--he\ntries to set an unclimbable fence in the way of any answer by telling\nus, though without any convincing argument to support his statement,\nthat we may \"exclude the possibility that it\" [the internal moving\nprinciple] \"acts either through supernatural or teleological\ninterposition through an externally creative power.\" But though he\nrefuses to allow us to look in this direction for a solution of our\ndifficulties, it must be confessed that he does not help us with any\nother answer satisfying the question of the origin and evolution of\nLife.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n  [Footnote 36: _The Origin and Evolution of Life; or, the Theory\n  of Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy._ By F. H.\n  Osborn. (G. Bell & Sons.)]\n\n  [Footnote 37: By _entelechy_--an Aristotelian term\n  re-introduced by Driesch--is meant an agency other than one of\n  a purely chemico-physical character, which differentiates\n  living from not-living substance, and is responsible for the\n  phenomenon of life.]\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nINDEX OF NAMES\n\n\nAgassiz, 142\n\nAllen, Grant, 85\n\nAquinas, St. Thomas, 60, 147, 153\n\nAusten, Miss, 32\n\nAvicenna, 153\n\n\nBalfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 116\n\nBassi, Laura, 155\n\nBateson, W., F.R.S., 4, 7, 11, 118, 150\n\nBax, Belfort, 37\n\nBenson, Mgr., 84, 88, 94, 101\n\nBergson, 151, 166\n\nBernhardi, 20\n\nBorden, Sir Robert, 122\n\nBranco, 162\n\nBuffon, 100\n\nButler, Samuel 44, 61\n\n\nChesterton, G. K., 113\n\nClodd, E., 86\n\nConklyn, 23\n\nCowper, 37\n\nCrichton-Browne, 20\n\nCuvier, 142\n\n\nDarwin, 116, 131, 150, 173\n\nDevas, Mr. 27, 120\n\nDewar, Prof. Sir J., F.R.S., 113\n\nDoyle, Sir A. C., 46, 51\n\nDriesch, 4, 7, 24, 69, 164, 166, 173\n\n\nFallopius, 96, 144\n\nFielding, 31\n\n\nGosse, E., 39\n\nGosse, Philip, 98\n\nGrant Allen, 85\n\n\nHealy, Father--Tale of, 40\n\nHenderson, J. J., 167\n\nHenslow, 24\n\nHull, Fr. E., S.J., 103\n\nHuxley, 74, 98, 101, 117\n\n\nJohnson, Dr. 48, 161, 168\n\nJoly, Prof., F.R.S., 110\n\n\nKelvin, Lord, 151\n\n\nLankester, 15\n\nLauder, Harry, 2\n\nLeduc, 2, 62\n\nLodge, Sir O., 3, 85\n\nLoeb, J,. 58, 62\n\nLucas, E. V., on the War, 47\n\n\nMcdougal, 164\n\nMahaffy, Sir John, 111\n\nMarett, 15, 16\n\nMasefield, 48\n\nMendel, 75, 135\n\nMilton, 145\n\nMivart, Prof., 96\n\n\nNeedham, John Turberville, 154\n\nNewman, 33, 38\n\nNewton, The Rev. J., 38\n\nNietzsche, 19\n\n\nOsborne, Prof., 160\n\n\nPaley, 160\n\nPasteur, 157\n\nPerkin, Prof. W. H., 107\n\nPouchet, 157\n\nPriestley, 156\n\n\nRedi, Francisco, 153\n\nRichardson, 31\n\nRignano, 25, 62\n\nRyder, Dr., 51\n\n\nSabatier, 113\n\nSchwann, Theodor, 157\n\nScott, Prof., 142\n\nScott, The Rev. Thomas, 38\n\nSedgwick, Adam, 162\n\nSpallanzani, Lazaro, 155\n\nStensen, Nicolaus, 75, 97, 99\n\n\nTilden, Sir William, 64\n\nTyson, Edward, 77\n\n\nWasmann, 26, 150\n\nWells, H. G., 49\n\nWhiffen, 20\n\n\n\n\nGENERAL INDEX\n\n\nAdam, 146\n\nAdrenals, 63\n\n\"After-Christians,\" 120\n\nAggressive mimicry, 123\n\nAlbino race, An, 128\n\nAmazonian Indians, 20\n\n\"Anatomie of a Pygmie,\" 77\n\nAncestral peculiarities, 133\n\nAniline dyes, 107\n\nArrangement, 8, 137\n\n\nBacteria, Prototrophic, 169\n\nBadische Aniline Fabrik, 106, 109\n\nBathybius, 98\n\nBion, 167\n\nBlind Chance, 166\n\nBondage of Knowledge, The, 84\n\nBotanic Garden, 131\n\nBreeding Committees, 119\n\nBreeding True, 126\n\nBricks and Builders, 139\n\n\"Bugbear of Hell,\" 21, 119\n\n\nCalvinism, 32\n\nCartesian idea of the soul, 69\n\nCatalysts, 113, 170\n\nCelibacy, 120\n\nCell-Theory, The, 157\n\nChance-Medley, 134\n\nChromatin, 130\n\nColloids, 62\n\n\"Continuity,\" 46\n\nConversion, 34\n\nCowardice, Alleged, of Catholic Scientists, 99\n\nCreation, 163;\n  a method of, 144\n\n\"Criticisms on the Pentateuch,\" 45\n\n\"Cutting up of Frogs,\" 115\n\nCytolysis, 65\n\n\n\"Dabney, Mr.,\" 47\n\nDefence of the Realm Act, 82\n\nDegradation of Energy, 168\n\nDerivative Creation, 146\n\nDiscontinuity, 3\n\n\"Ducks and Drakes,\" 156\n\nDuck's Egg, 125, 130\n\nDye-stuffs, 107\n\n\nElimination, Proof by, 163\n\nEnergy, 16\n\nEnergy, Degradation of, 169\n\nEntelechy, 164, 171\n\nEskimo, 19\n\n\"Esmond,\" 31\n\n\"Essays and Reviews,\" 45\n\nEugenics, 117\n\nEvangelicanism, 32, 33, 44\n\nExhibitions, International, of 1851 and 1862, 10\n\nExtermination of the Less Fit, 122\n\n\nFamilies, Restricted, 118\n\n\"Father and Son,\" 39\n\n\"Force and Energy, a Theory of Dynamics,\" 85\n\n\"Force of Truth, The,\" 38\n\nFormaldehyde, 2\n\nFossils, Explanation of, 97\n\nFree First Cause, 144, 151\n\nFreethinkers and \"tolerance, justice, and gentleness,\" 73\n\n\nGermination, 65\n\nGuide, the Church a, 92\n\n\nHapsburg lip, The, 127\n\nHarmonious-Equipotential System, 69\n\nHeredity in the Law Courts, 29\n\nHormones, 63\n\nHorse, Pedigree of the, 161\n\n\nImprimatur, The, 77\n\nIn-and-in breeding, 127\n\nIndex Prohibitorius, 95\n\nIndustrial Scientific Research, Department of, 114\n\nInheritance:\n  Chemical theory, 134;\n  Mnemic theory, 5, 61, 133;\n  Particulate theories, 61, 132\n\n\nJack, Jill, and Joan, 119\n\nJungle, The law of, 122\n\n\nKing-crabs, 145\n\n\nLamp-shells, 145\n\nLaw and Heredity, The, 129\n\nLaw and Lawgiver, 9\n\nLaw of Nature, 174\n\nLaw's \"Serious Call,\" 31\n\nLiberty, personal, 87\n\n\"Life and Habit,\" 61\n\nLife, Origin of, 160\n\n\"Little Dorrit,\" 112\n\n\"Loss and Gain,\" 33\n\n\nMaggots in meat, 153\n\nMan's pedigree, 161\n\n\"Marriage,\" 49\n\nMauve, 107\n\nMediate Creation, 147\n\nMemory, unconscious, 5\n\nMendelism, 6\n\nMethod of Creation, 144, 161\n\nMicromeristic theories, 5\n\nMimicry, 123\n\nMnemic Theory of Inheritance, The, 5, 61, 133\n\nMonastic Orders, 121\n\nMonophyletic evolution, 151\n\n\"Multitude and Solitude,\" 48\n\n\n\"Naturalism and Agnosticism,\" 57\n\nNatural Selection, 19, 122, 173\n\n\"Nature does this,\" 136, 162\n\nNature's insurgent son, 15\n\n\"New Republic, The,\" 56\n\n\"New Revelation, The,\" 46, 51\n\nNitrobacter, 170\n\nNovels and Novelists, 30\n\n\n\"Occam's\" razor, 29\n\nOccultism, 28, 51\n\nOrdered energy, 166\n\n\"Organism as a whole,\" 38\n\nOrigin of Species, 150\n\n\"Over Bemertons,\" 47\n\nOxford Movement, 33\n\n\n\"Pamela,\" 32\n\nPangenesis, 61, 131\n\nPantheism, 9\n\n\"Paradise Lost,\" 145\n\n\"Parson Adams,\" 31\n\nParticulate Theories of Inheritance, 61, 132\n\nPersonal Liberty, 81\n\n\"Philosophy of Biology, The,\" 163\n\nPhylogeny, 4, 149\n\nPlymouth Brethren, 99\n\nPolitical leaders of the day, 114\n\nPolyphyletic hypothesis, The, 150\n\nPorto Santo rabbits, 148\n\nPost-Christians, 27\n\nPrototrophic bacteria, 169\n\nProvidentissimus Deus, 103\n\nPugs and Greyhounds, 126\n\nPurposefulness: a strange confession as to, 59\n\n\n\"Raymond,\" 51\n\nResiliency, 172\n\nRestricted families, 118\n\n\nSabbatarianism, 36\n\nSalaries of Scientific Teachers, 112\n\nSaurians, 145\n\nScience, Catholic Men of, 75-6\n\nScience, Neglect of, at Schools, 109\n\nSin, Mythical Ideas of, 123\n\nSix-fingered race, A, 128\n\nSlavery in the State, 24\n\n\"Slime of the Earth,\" 146\n\n\"Social Vermin,\" 118\n\n\"Some Revelations as to 'Raymond,'\" 53\n\nSpecial Creation, 142\n\nSpermatozoon, 65\n\nSpiritualism and the War, 50\n\nSpontaneous Generation, 152\n\nSprings in the watch, The, 172\n\n\"Stinks Men,\" 110\n\nSurvival of the Fittest, 122\n\nSyngamy, 65\n\nSynthetic drugs, 107\n\n\nTelepathy, 2\n\nTeratomata, 65\n\nTheophobia, 26\n\nThermos flask, The, 113\n\n\"Throws back,\" 128\n\nTrilobites, 145\n\nTrinity College, Dublin, 110\n\n\"Tyranny\" of the Church, 91\n\n\nUncle Remus and the rabbit's tail, 127\n\nUnconscious Memory, 5, 61\n\nUniversities, Mediaeval, 75\n\n\nVitalism and Anti-Vitalism, 68, 165\n\n\n\"Way of All Flesh, The,\" 44\n\n\"Wisdom, Book of,\" 123\n\nWolff's Experiment, 69\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPRINTED BY\nHAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,\nLONDON AND AYLESBURY.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:\n\nEvery effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as\npossible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious\ntypographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have\nbeen fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:\n\npage 85\n\n    years in investigating. The man who sets out to make a\n    research, without first acertaining[ascertaining] what others\n    have done in that direction, proposes to\n\npage 121 (Footnote 32)\n\n    Conklyn, _Heredity and Environment in the Development of\n    Men_. Princetown[Princeton] University Press, 1915.\n\npage 136\n\n    mere personification and means either chance-medley or a\n    Creator, according to the old dilemna.[dilemma] There is a\n    very curious example of this inability\n\npage 153:\n\n    We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668,\n    when Franceso[Francesco] Redi (1626-1697) published his book\n    on the generation of insects","title":"Science and Morals and Other Essays","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":46330}