222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for it is the essential nature of matter to be the vehicle or substratum 

 of mechanical energy. 



There is nothing new in all this. I have merely put into modern 

 language the issue raised by Descartes more than two centuries ago. 

 The philosophies of the Occasionalists, of Spinoza, of Malebranche, of 

 modern idealism and modern materialism, have all grown out of the 

 controversies which Cartesianism evoked. Of all this the pseudo- 

 science of the present time appears to be unconscious ; otherwise it 

 would hardly content itself with " making het again " the pseudo- 

 science of the past. 



In the course of these observations I have already had occasion to 

 express my appreciation of the copious and perfervid eloquence which 

 enriches the Duke of Argyll's pages. I am almost ashamed that a 

 constitutional insensibility to the Sirenian charms of rhetoric has per- 

 mitted me, in wandering through these flowery meads, to be attracted 

 almost exclusively to the bare places of fallacy and the stony grounds 

 of deficient information which are disguised, though not concealed, by 

 these floral decorations. But, in his concluding sentences, the duke 

 soars into a Tyrtsean strain which roused even my dull soul : 



It was high time, indeed, that some revolt should be raised against that 

 Reign of Terror which had come to be established in the scientific world under 

 the abuse of a great name. Professor Huxley has not joined this revolt openly, 

 for as yet, indeed, it is only beginning to raise its head. But more than once 

 and very lately he has uttered a warning voice against the shallow dogmatism 

 that has provoked it. The time is coming when that revolt will be carried 

 further. Higher interpretations will be established. Unless I am much mis- 

 taken, they are already coming in sight (p. 339). 



I have been living very much out of the world for the last two or 

 three years, and when I read this denunciatory outburst, as of one 

 filled with the spirit of prophecy, I said to myself : " Mercy upon us ! 

 what has happened ? Can it be that X and Y (it would be wrong to 

 mention the names of the vigorous young friends which occurred to 

 me) are playing Danton and Robespierre ; and that a guillotine is 

 erected in the court-yard of Burlington House for the benefit of all 

 anti-Darwinian Fellows of the Royal Society ? Where are the secret 

 conspirators against this tyranny, whom I am supposed to favor, and 

 yet not have the courage to join openly ? And to think of my poor 

 oppressed friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer, * compelled to speak with 

 bated breath ' (p. 338) certainly for the first time in my thirty-odd 

 years' acquaintance with him ! " My alarm and horror at the sup- 

 position that, while I had been fiddling (or at any rate physicking), 

 my beloved Rome had been burning, in this fashion, may be imagined. 



I am sure the Duke of Argyll will be glad to hear that the anxiety 

 he created was of extremely short duration. It is my privilege to 

 have access to the best sources of information, and nobody in the 

 scientific world can tell me anything about either the Reign of Ter- 



