SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE. 209 



to the clergy than the practice, too common among laymen, of regard- 

 ing them, when in the pulpit, as a sort of chartered libertines, whose 

 divagations are not to be taken seriously. And I am well assured 

 that the distinguished divine, to whom the sermon is attributed, is 

 the last person who would desire to avail himself of the dishonoring 

 protection which has been superfluously thrown over him. 



So much for the lecture on propriety. But the Duke of Argyll, 

 to whom the hortatory style seems to come naturally, does me the 

 honor to make my sayings the subjects of a series of other admoni- 

 tions, some on philosophical, some on geological, some on biological 

 topics. I can but rejoice that the duke's authority in these matters 

 is not always employed to show that I am ignorant of them ; on the 

 contrary, I meet with an amount of agreement, even of approbation, 

 for which I proffer such gratitude as may be due, even if that grati- 

 tude is sometimes almost overshadowed by surprise. 



I am unfeignedly astonished to find that the Duke of Argyll, who 

 professes to intervene on behalf of the preacher, does really, like 

 another Balaam, bless me altogether in respect of the main issue. 



I denied the justice of the preacher's ascription to men of science 

 of the doctrine that miracles are incredible, because they are viola- 

 tions of natural law ; and the Duke of Argyll says that he believes 

 my "denial to be well founded. The preacher was answering an 

 objection which has now been generally abandoned." Either the 

 preacher knew this or he did not know it. It seems to me, as a mere 

 lay teacher, to be a pity that the " great dome of St. Paul's " should 

 have been made to " echo " (if so be that such stentorian effects 

 were really produced) a statement which, admitting the first alterna- 

 tive, was unfair, and, admitting the second, was ignorant.* 



Having thus sacrificed one half of the preacher's arguments, the 

 Duke of Argyll proceeds to make equally short work with the other 

 half. It appears that he fully accepts my position that the occurrence 

 of those events, which the preacher speaks of as catastrophes, is no 

 evidence of disorder, inasmuch as such catastrophes may be necessary 

 occasional consequences of uniform changes. Whence I conclude, his 

 Grace agrees with me, that the talk about royal laws " wrecking " 

 ordinary laws may be eloquent metaphor, but is also nonsense. 



* The Duke of Argyll speaks of the recent date of the demonstration of the fallacy of 

 the doctrine in question. " Recent " is a relative term, but I may mention that the ques- 

 tion is fully discussed in my book on " Hume," which, if I may believe my publishers, has 

 been read by a good many people since it appeared in 1879. Moreover, 1 observe, from 

 a note at page 89 of " The Reign of Law," a work to which 1 shall have occasion to advert 

 by-and-by, that the Duke of Argyll draws attention to the circumstance that, so long ago 

 as 1866, the views which I hold on this subject were well known. The duke, in fact, 

 writing about this time, says, after quoting a phrase of mine, " The question of miracles 

 seems now to be admitted on all hands to be simply a question of evidence." In science 

 we think that a teacher who ignores views which have been discussed coram populo for 

 twenty years, is hardly up to the mark. 

 vol. xxxi. 14 



