220 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is not content with favoring me with his opinions about my own busi- 

 ness ; he also answers for mine ; and, at that point, really the worm 

 must turn. I am told that " no one knows better than Professor Hux- 

 ley " a variety of things which I really do not know ; and I am said to 

 be a disciple of that "Positive Philosophy" which I have, over and 

 over again, publicly repudiated in language which is certainly not 

 lacking in intelligibility, whatever may be its other defects. 



I am told that I have been amusing myself with a " metaphysical 

 exercitation or logomachy " (may I remark incidentally that these are 

 not quite convertible terms ?), when, to the best of my belief, I have been 

 trying to expose a process of mystification, based upon the use of sci- 

 entific language by writers who exhibit no sign of scientific training, 

 of accurate scientific knowledge, or of clear ideas respecting the phi- 

 losophy of science, which is doing very serious harm to the public. 

 Naturally enough, they take the lion's skin of scientific phraseology 

 for evidence that the voice which issues from beneath it is the voice 

 of Science, and I desire to relieve them from the consequences of 

 their error. 



The Duke of Argyll asks, apparently with sorrow that it should 

 be his duty to subject me to reproof : 



What shall we say of a philosophy which confounds the organic with the 

 inorganic, and, refusing to take note of a difference so profound, assumes to ex- 

 plain, under one common ahstraction, the movements due to gravitation and the 

 movements due to the mind of man? 



To which I may fitly reply by another question : What shall we say 

 to a controversialist who attributes to the subject of his attack opin- 

 ions which are notoriously not his ; and expresses himself in such a 

 manner that it is obvious he is unacquainted with even the rudiments 

 of that knowledge which is necessary to the discussion into which he 

 has rushed ? 



What line of my writing can the Duke of Argyll produce which 

 confounds the organic with the inorganic ? 



As to the latter half of the paragraph, I have to confess a doubt 

 whether it has any definite meaning. But I imagine that the duke is 

 alluding to my assertion that the law of gravitation is nowise " sus- 

 pended " or " defied " when a man lifts his arm ; but that, under such 

 circumstances, part of the store of energy in the universe operates on 

 the arm at a mechanical advantage as against the operation of another 

 part. I was simple enough to think that no one who had as much 

 knowledge of physiology as is to be found in an elemental primer, 

 or who had ever heard of the greatest physical generalization of mod- 

 ern times the doctrine of the conservation of energy would dream 

 of doubting my statement ; and I was further simple enough to think 

 that no one who lacked these qualifications would feel tempted to 

 charge me with error. It appears that my simplicity is greater than 

 my powers of imagination. 



