98 Scientists not necessarily [INTER which they cannot grasp and whose logic is inconveniently in the way of their theorizing, along with religion which they fail to appreciate and whose power they have never known. Now this is not the work of true scientists nor of pure scientific literature. The works which have value as real contributions to pure science are very few and read by a comparatively limited class of cultivated students. But these additions, whether theoretical or actual, are seized upon by a multitude of writers and lecturers, who make a business of reproducing the same materials over and over in text books, and magazine articles, and story-books, and lectures, and lay sermons, heaping facts and theories and shallow speculations into one ever-increasing mountain of so-called science, from which the gaping multitudes, unthinking, feed themselves. There are very few scientists who are likewise good philosophers; and many who have gone out of their regular line, have succeeded only in demonstrating anew the fact, so often forgotten apparently, that proficiency in one branch of study does not make a man an authority in another. Huxley has made himself the laughing-stock of logicians by his "Life of Hume," and Draper, the butt of historians by his reiteration of dead and buried issues, based on facts which he has distorted in his mis-named "Conflict of Science and Religion." And can you conceive of any sadder example than trembling, dying, hoary-headed, honor-crowned Charles Darwin, who after a life of what men call splendid success, when asked by an ardent youth as to his opinions of revelation, replies, "I'm an old man and have no time for such enquiries; but scientific investigation makes a man cautious about accepting any proofs, and as for myself I do not believe in a revelation." Two or three very serious thoughts arise in connection with this. Charles Darwin, through a long life of toil, has given to the world many a contribution of value, many a speculation that has proved LUDE.] Philosophical or Theological authorities. 99 untrue, a vast hypothesis which only lacks proof to make it universally accepted. But he has not had time to investigate the claims of a revelation; he is cautious about proofs; and yet he ventures a judgment, backed with his authority, but confessedly based on his ignorance and his doubt of proofs. What is to become of the world of law and of common sense if we are to doubt all things which can be sustained only by proofs, but cannot be tested in a laboratory or approved of by some natural scientist because its proofs have not come within his narrow field and he has not time to go out of his rut to find them? Nothing is left for us but to embrace with unquestioning faith a great number of interesting and useful facts brought to light by science, linked together in a vast hypothesis, which for lack of fixed proof often changes its form, and is rejected by many first class scientists. My advice on the head of this is,-Young men, don't accept the dictum of any man, especially on subjects that he has never investigated; don't imagine that science can make a man a universal authority any more than theology can make a man a scientist; and don't be cautious about proofs excepting to test them well, but do be cautious about putting faith in any theory that is lacking in proofs. What we need most of all to-day is a little honest skepticism that will not swallow down as undoubted fact every dictatorial utterance that is noised abroad in the name of a prostituted science. Test your science and see if it has proofs; test your philosophy and see if it has proofs; test your religion and see if it can produce proofs; test Christianity, and see if it has proofs. And in so far as proofs exist, believe; in so far as proofs are lacking, suspend your judgment; in so far as proofs are opposed, you must reject or be untrue to the scientific method. But this is not the tendency to-day; unproved theories are taught and blazed abroad as truth, transforming the very character of our schools and colleges and professions. Where classic 100 True Scientists see the danger [INTER literature and exact thought made men in former days, now rule the laboratory and physical science and tentative theory; and along with apparent advantage, already the bane is being felt in a decadence of thought. None too soon can the warning voice be raised to save our world from such a degeneracy of the thinking powers, as will lay mankind open to a credulous unthinking faith in the lowest and worst kind of materialism, which is equally destructive of logic, of philosophy, and of religion. Dr. Beale, who, though first and foremost as a biologist, still retains his philosophy and his common-sense as well as his religion, thus speaks of the tendencies of modern decaying thought :-"People have been misled in times past by false teaching, and large numbers have become steeped in ignorance, bigotry and fanaticism. But I do not believe that the most lamentable instances on record have led to results more disastrous, or so likely to prove more injurious to the interests of individuals and possibly to nations than this attempt in our own time to establish the weakest and worst form of materialism ever advanced is calculated to produce in the future. It is bad enough when numbers of people become converts to a system founded on truth more or less perverted, or misinterpreted, owing to the ignorance or mistaken zeal of its exponents; but the evils resulting are harmless and evanescent indeed as compared with those which must result from inculcating a system which professes to be founded on reason, but which really rests upon fictions and arbitrary assertions. A system in which fact is appealed to, but is not to be found. Look at it how you may, you will not discover the smallest speck of firm ground of truth upon which to build any form of materialistic doctrine."1 Dr. Dawson thus writes of the same tendency :-" There can be no doubt that the theory of evolution, more especially that phase of it which is advocated by Darwin, has greatly extended 1 Victoria Institute. LUDE.] of the spread of pseudo-science. 101 its influence, especially among young English and American naturalists, within the few past years. We now constantly see reference made to these theories, as if they were established principles, applicable without question to the explanation of observed facts, while classifications notoriously based on these views, and in themselves untrue to nature, have gained currency in popular articles and even in text-books. In this way young people are being trained to be evolutionists without being aware of it, and will come to regard nature wholly through this medium. So strong is this tendency, more especially in England, that there is reason to fear that natural history will be prostituted to the service of a shallow philosophy, and that our old Baconian mode of viewing nature will be quite reversed, so that, instead of studying facts in order to arrive at general principles, we shall return to the medieval plan of setting up dogmas based on authority only, or on metaphysical considerations of the most flimsy character, and forcibly twisting nature into conformity with their requirements. Thus 'advanced' views in science lend themselves to the destruction of science, and to a return to semi-barbarism."1 The evolution philosophy has also taken hold of many in Germany, and there Dr. Haeckel, its greatest living exponent, a very few years ago, at a meeting of natural philosophers, told the assembled doctors that "the two principles of inheritance and adaptation, explain the development of the manifold existing organisms from a single organic cell; dispensing forever with the need of a Creator, and moreover a creature composed of only one of these omnipotent cells, by certain zoological inquiries, is shown to be possessed of motion, sensibility, perception and will. The cell, then, consists of matter called protoplasm, composed chiefly of carbon, with an admixture of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur. These component parts, properly united, 1 Victoria Institute. 102 If Evolution ignores the Creator [INTER produce body and soul of the animated world, and suitably nursed, become man." And here Haeckel waxes eloquent:"with this simple argument the universe is explained, the Divinity annulled, and a new era of infinite knowledge ushered in,”—and then as a fit conclusion to this scientific proclamation, he insists that these incontrovertible doctrines of cells and organic evolution should be taught in every school of the land in place of an exploded Bible. Of course, in a previous part of his speech he had acknowledged that organic evolution could not be experimentally proved-but a mere deficiency of proofs cannot tell against this theory, nor shake Herr Haeckel's credulous faith in matter. For, forsooth, it must be so or Evolution will be swamped. Following in his wake rises a disciple of Haeckel, waxing still more bold, exclaiming, "You must deny God and trample the cross under foot before you can become even a scholar, far less a master in natural science." Now this is the essentially atheistic materialism to which, with the aid of Tyndall and Huxley, and a numberless throng of applauding believers in matter, Mr. Herbert Spencer is, unwittingly it may be, but none the less surely, leading the way, impelled himself by the unseen force of false premises, on to the inevitable logical conclusion, the destruction of all that has given life to modern civilization. But, you exclaim, these men disclaim, one and all, the charge of being atheists or materialists: they are only agnostics. Perhaps so; but what is materialism? Sir William Hamilton points out a twofold evil influence of the too exclusive study of the physical sciences. First, "It diverts from all notice of the phenomena of moral liberty which are revealed to us in the human mind alone." Second, "By exhibiting merely the pheno 1The Times, 1877. |