296 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PEARSON'S GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE. 

 ANNOTATIONS ON THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS. 



By C. S. PEIRCE. 



IF any follower of Dr. Pearson thinks that in the observations I am 

 about to make I am not sufficiently respectful to his master, I can 

 assure him that without a high opinion of his powers I should not 

 have taken the trouble to make these annotations, and without a higher 

 opinion still, I should not have used the bluntness which becomes the 

 impersonal discussions of mathematicians. 



An introductory chapter of ethical content sounds the dominant 

 note of the book. The author opens with the declaration that our 

 conduct ought to be regulated by the Darwinian theory. Since that 

 theory is an attempt to show how natural causes tend to impart to 

 stocks of animals and plants characters which, in the long run, pro- 

 mote reproduction and thus insure the continuance of those stocks, it 

 would seem that making Darwinism the guide of conduct ought to 

 mean that the continuance of the race is to be taken as the summum 

 bonum, and 'Multiplicamini' as the epitome of the moral law. Pro- 

 fessor Pearson, however, understands the matter a little differently, 

 expressing himself thus: "The sole reason [for encouraging] any form 

 of human activity . . . lies in this: [its] existence tends to pro- 

 mote the welfare of human society, to increase social happiness, or 

 to strengthen social stability. In the spirit of the age we are bound 

 to question the value of science; to ask in what way it increases the 

 happiness of mankind or promotes social efficiency." 



The second of these two statements omits the phrase, 'the welfare 

 of human society,' which conveys no definite meaning; and we may, 

 therefore, regard it as a mere diluent, adding nothing to the essence 

 of what is laid down. Strict adhesion to Darwinian principles would 

 preclude the admission of the 'happiness of mankind' as an ultimate 

 aim. For on those principles everything is directed to the continuance 

 of the stock, and the individual is utterly of no account, except in so 

 far as he is an agent of reproduction. Now there is no other happiness 

 of mankind than the happiness of individual men. We must, therefore, 

 regard this clause as logically deleterious to the purity of the doctrine. 

 As to 'social stability,' we all know very well what ideas this phrase is 

 intended to convey to English apprehensions; and it must be admitted 

 that Darwinism, generalized in due measure, may apply to English 



