SOME REMARKS ON TEE LIBERTY OF SCIENCE. 



4G1 



really debatable topics of the discourse that Ru- 

 dolph Virehow ' thought it incumbent on him to 

 remark in his one hour's speech on the closing 

 day of the Congress of Naturalists. The distin- 

 guished scholar of Berlin had, from the begin- 

 ning, announced his intention of addressing the 

 meeting, but the subject of his discourse was, 

 as the programme had it, "not yet decided 

 upon." No one acquainted with the method of 

 Virchow's speeches would expect to find in his 

 address an orderly discussion of a clearly-defined 

 theme, but rather a sprightly " talk " (causerie) 

 about this, that, and the other thing. There is 

 no preparation, but the orator brusquely attacks 

 whatever subject he chooses, and talks ex tempore. 

 Therefore, no one was very much surprised on 

 learning that Virehow was to speak of " The Lib- 

 erty of Science in the Modern State." He remind- 

 ed his hearers how large is the measure of liberty 

 now acceded to science, and said that more could 

 hardly be asked, citing the addresses delivered in 

 the Congress as proofs of this. A few years ago, 

 such discourses, he said, would not have been 

 allowed, whether in Munich or anywhere else. He 

 told of how Oken, the founder of the Naturalists' 

 Congresses, had been doomed to perish in exile in 

 that same canton in which Hutten had found his 

 last permanent resting-place ; and how the first 

 meeting at Leipsic had, of necessity, to be held 

 in secret. In our joy over the possession of en- 

 tire liberty, it must be our care, he said, to retain 

 it, and to guard scrupulously against all abuse 

 of it, for, in that way, we might cause restrictions 

 to be imposed again. Lest the liberty of science 

 should be again taken away, nothing but demon- 

 strated facts must be put forward as " science." 

 Schoolmasters must not be allowed to decide be- 

 tween the problems they are to teach and those 

 they are not to teach : the man of science himself 

 must tell them what is demonstrated truth and 

 what is still under investigation. Such doctrines 

 as those of the plastidule soul, the genesis of soul 

 by the combination of carbon, hydrogen, and nitro- 

 gen, are simply statements of problems. To lay 

 them down as propositions, or even to permit the 

 schoolmaster to import them into his instruction, 

 would be to imperil the liberty of science and to 

 compromise science itself. 



The attentive reader will have noticed that, in 

 i this discourse, Virehow mainly opposed the ped- 

 agogical value of the evolution theory on which 

 Haeckel lays much stress. I freely admit that I 

 am a hearty admirer of the learned Berlin pro- 

 fessor (Virehow), and that I fully recognize the im- 

 1 See this discourse in No. X. of the Supplement. 



portance of being on our guard against accepting, 

 too readily, hypotheses not yet fully confirmed. 

 But, on the other hand, I cannot but deeply re- 

 gret that Prof. Virehow should not have spared 

 the shafts of his irony, and the skill of his dialec- 

 tics, for a more fitting occasion; for we are com- 

 pelled, in the name of scientific research, to enter 

 our strongest protest against the whole tone 

 and tenor of his speech. The aim of that dis- 

 course is simply a restriction of research — a 

 restriction that never can be of benefit to 

 science. A few years ago, at a meeting of the 

 Naturalists' Association, we heard, this time also 

 from the lips of a Berlin professor, the sen- 

 tence Ignorabimus ; ' and now, from Munich, 

 there comes to us a sentence which goes much 

 further than that — Restringamur. True, Vir- 

 ehow was right when he declared that an hypoth- 

 esis is, after all, only an hypothesis. But here- 

 in he said nothing new ; we all were aware of 

 that long ago ; and, what is more, there was at 

 the time no occasion which called for special in- 

 sistence on this old truth. For, when Virehow 

 protests against the introduction into the schools 

 of the " plastidule soul," he attributes to Haeckel 

 a purpose he never has entertained. Haeckel 

 laid special stress upon the introduction into the 

 schools of the genetic method ; and, among think- 

 ing men, there can be no question that this 

 would be an enormous gain as compared with the 

 now dominant authoritative method. In the em- 

 ployment of this genetic method, Haeckel has in 

 view the reform of education which he desires 

 to see brought about, and, in the interest of 

 science, it must be the wish of every one that his 

 scheme may not be an empty dream. But I 

 must go further, and say that, in my opinion, the 

 doctrine of evolution may be introduced into the 

 schools without the slightest hesitation, so long 

 as it is offered, by the teacher, simply as the hy- 

 pothesis which it is, and which can be very well 

 harmonized with current religious ideas, as we 

 see from the example of Wallace and other very 

 devout Darwinists. Or must we say that pupils, 

 even in our high-schools, should learn nothing 

 about the problems which occupy the minda of 

 all mankind? What harm is it, what damage 

 does it do to the liberty of scientific research, if 

 the pupil (who is sufficiently advanced in age and 

 in his studies) is told how men endeavor to ex- 

 plain the relations between phenomena ? Then, 

 if we are to be so extremely scrupulous about ex- 

 cluding all hypotheses from the schools, we must 



1 See Du Bois-Keymond's address, in The Popular 

 Science Monthly for May, 1ST4. 



