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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Eozoon canadense ; but we venture 

 to say that, in spite of his slur upon 

 Darwin for not having grasped this kind 

 of knowledge, he does not himself pos- 

 sess one particle or scintilla of it that he 

 could teach as fact to any human being. 



Then what are we to say about the 

 accusation against Darwin of grinding 

 " all that is fair and beautiful in nature 

 into a dry and formless dust " ? All 

 that we can say of it is that it is false, 

 and, as coming from a man of recog- 

 nized scientific position, deplorable. 

 Nature to Darwin was full of interest to 

 the last ; and few men have done more 

 than he to awaken an interest m and 

 love of nature in others. We have only 

 to read his correspondence with the 

 foremost naturalists of the time to see 

 what a center of interest he was to 

 them, and what a living thing the study 

 of nature under his guidance, or upon 

 lines indicated by him, had become. The 

 fact is that organic nature was never so 

 interesting a subject of study as it is 

 to-day ; and few will deny that this is 

 due, in large measure, to the influence 

 of Darwin — the man who is now ac- 

 cused of turning " all that is fair and 

 beautiful in nature into a dry and form- 

 less dust." When people who claim to 

 "grasp the heaven above" indulge in 

 such unfounded and uncharitable re- 

 marks about their intellectual superiors, 

 one is apt to wonder whether their pre- 

 hensile powers have really been exercised 

 to the best advantage. 



That Sir William Dawson did not 

 write this book for a scientific public is 

 evident by many signs. When he speaks 

 of standing near to the "treacherous 

 margin " of the evolution philosophy 

 and rescuing a few grains of truth, he 

 writes — there is but one expression for 

 it — utter nonsense. Imagine for one 

 moment a scientist, a philosopher, steal- 

 ing gingerly to the edge of a system 

 of philosophy and putting out a timor- 

 ous hand to clutch a grain of truth, 

 whirling, as it were, in a vortex ! Im- 

 agine the scientist, the philosopher, 



dreading to be sucked in, and quickly 

 retreating with his rescued grain to a 

 safer footing ! Again, when he tells us, 

 in effect, that the controversy between 

 Huxley and Harrison supplies " an evi- 

 dence of the need of a divine revelation," 

 we are persuaded that such an utter- 

 ance could only have been intended for 

 very shallow minds. More need for a 

 revelation, we should say, if Harrison 

 and Huxley agreed, for how should we 

 know that they were not both in error ? 

 When they disagree, there is at least a 

 probability that the errors of the one 

 will more or less cancel those of the 

 other, and that some residuum of truth 

 will be left behind. It is hard to see 

 how truth could be established except 

 by conflict, or how minds could develop 

 except through contact and collision 

 with other minds. Think what a lot of 

 simpletons we should become if, as often 

 as a difference of opinion arose, instead 

 of being left to weigh the arguments on 

 either side, we were at once to hear an 

 authoritative voice deciding the whole 

 question ! It will greatly please most of 

 the readers of this book to be told that 

 Darwin took a very " unscientific " po- 

 sition in " enthroning chance or acci- 

 dent or necessity as Lord and Creator " ; 

 and it will not trouble them in the least 

 to remember — if they do remember — 

 that, on the immediately preceding page, 

 it was stated that " Darwin's natural 

 turn of mind and his scientific training 

 were not of such a character as to lead 

 him to seek for ultimate causes; he was 

 content with a modal evolution (i. e., 

 with evolution considered and treated 

 as a method) ; he took matter and force 

 as he found them." The two statements 

 are in obvious conflict, and the one on the 

 earlier page is the correct one. Darwin 

 did not enthrone chance ; he took matter 

 and force as he found them ; and to us his 

 position appears entirely scientific. Her- 

 bert Spencer, by a long course of reason- 

 ing, arrives at the conclusion that the 

 First Cause is inscrutable. Darwin as- 

 sumed as much without going through 



