MAN AND SCIENCE: A REPLY. 



future may have in store for us ; but of one thing 

 the nionists may be perfectly assured, that while 

 we are prepared implicitly to accept everything 

 that true science can offer us, whatever may be 

 the consequences, it is only to true science that 

 we will yield our faith, our conscience, the foun- 

 dations of all our social organization and our 

 common-sense. This, however, we shall not be 

 called upon to do. The aggregate common-sense 

 of the world rejects these conclusions ; and the 

 authors of them cannot write or speak six con- 

 secutive sentences on any question of ethics with- 

 out practically confessing their own unbelief in 

 the principles they are upholding. Like other 

 men they speak, and speak eloquently, about 

 duty, choice, right, wrong, virtue, vice, tempta- 

 tion, resistance, determination, and the like ; all 

 of which, on the automatic theory, are simply un- 

 meaning and ridiculous expressions for things that 

 have no existence. 



In Prof. Tyndall's imaginary dialogue with his 

 too logical criminal, he certainly tries to manifest 

 " the courage of his convictions." He grants 

 freely and in unequivocal phrase that the mur- 

 derer cannot help murdering, but pleads also that 

 we cannot help hanging l him : we are mutually 

 compensating machines preserving the harmony 

 of society. But he fails to argue it out logically, 

 and, if it would do the criminal any good to argue, 

 he might easily show that his is a very hard case. 



" ' If,' says the robber, the ravisher, or the mur- 

 derer, ' I act because I must act, what right have 

 you to hold me responsible for my deeds '{ ' The 

 reply is, ' The right of society to protect itself 

 against aggressive and injurious forces, whether 

 they be bond or free, forces of Nature or forces of 

 man.' ' Then,' retorts the criminal, ' you pun- 

 ish me for what I cannot help.' ' Granted,' says 

 society, ' but had you known that the treadmill or 

 the gallows was certainly in store for you, you 

 might have " helped." Let us reason the matter 

 fully and frankly out. "We entertain no malice or 

 hatred against you, but simply with a view to our 

 own safety and purification we are determined that 

 you and such as you shall not enjoy liberty of evil 

 action in our midst. You, who have behaved as a 

 wild beast, we claim the right to cage or kill as we 

 should a wild beast. The public safety is a matter 

 of more importance than the very limited chance 

 of your moral renovation, while the knowledge 

 that you have been hanged by the neck may fur- 

 nish, to others about to do as you have done, the 

 precise motive which will hold them back.' " 2 



1 "You offend, because you cannot help offending, 

 to the public detriment. We punish, because we can- 

 not help punishing, for the public good. — " Birming- 

 ham Address." « Ibid. 



"Hold here," says the criminal; "you deny 

 me any free agency in this matter, but you assume 

 it for yourself. You say you are determined — 

 what does that mean? You talk about malice, 

 and hatred, and motive, and right to do this, that, 

 and the other ; also of liberty and of evil action. 

 What do you mean by all this ? If all action be 

 mechanical and automatic, resulting from molec- 

 ular arrangements over which we can have no 

 control, how can anything be either evil or good ; 

 and are you not talking something closely re- 

 sembling nonsense ? " To which the only con- 

 sistent or coherent reply would be : " It may be 

 as you say ; I don't believe much in anything. 

 All I know is, that I have at present both the will 

 and the power to hang you, and that I shall do 

 so. And, as it may be also that my words may 

 represent a factor l in your final decision, I pray 

 you to let this hanging be effected with as little 

 preliminary noise as possible, as you disturb my 

 harmonious molecular arrangements by creating 

 aerial vibrations with your objections." 



Enough, and perhaps too much of this. The 

 subject is an eminently distasteful one, and one 

 that I would have avoided had it been possible. 

 I have but in conclusion to make one or two ob- 

 servations on the claim that Prof. Tyndall ad- 

 vances for the reception of his views generally, 

 viz., that they are already admitted by the great- 

 er part of the thinking world. He says : " It is 

 now generally admitted that the man of to-day is 

 the child and product of incalculable antecedent 

 time ; " and again : 



" Most of you have been forced to listen to the 

 outcries and denunciations which rang discordant 

 through the land for some years after the publica- 

 tion of Mr. Darwin's ' Origin of Species.' Well, 

 the world — even the clerical world — has for the 

 most part settled down in the belief that Mr. Dar- 

 win's book simply reflects the truth of Nature ; 

 that we who are now 'foremost in the files of 

 time' have come to the front through almost 

 endless stages of promotion from lower to higher 

 forms of life. If to any one of us were given the 

 privilege of looking back through the a?ons across 

 which life has crept toward its present outcome, 

 his vision would ultimately reach a point when the 

 progenitors of this assembly could not be called 

 human." 3 



I mfist be permitted to dissent, most onphat- 

 ically, from the assumption that these are the 

 accepted doctrines of the world. It is true that 

 in England Mr. Darwin's views of what has been 



1 " The preacher's last word enters as a factor into 

 the man's conduct."—" Birmingham Address." 

 a "Ibid. 



