YIRCEOW ON THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE. 



17 



books, that in this view of the two cases the evi- 

 dence of fossils is made rather too much of, while 

 other kinds of evidence are wholly ignored. It 

 is a bold thing to criticise the judgment of a pa- 

 thologist upon general doctrines of biology, when 

 one is one's self not a biologist in any respect. I 

 will therefore shelter myself under authority. 



" When we confine our attention to any one 

 form (says Darwin), we are deprived of the weighty 

 arguments derived from the nature of the affinities 

 which connect together whole groups of organisms 

 — their geographical distribution in past and pres- 

 ent times, and their geological succession. The 

 homologieal structure, embryological development, 

 and rudimentary organs of a species, whether it be 

 man or any other animal, to which our attention 

 may be directed, remain to be considered; but 

 these great classes of facts afford, as it appears to 

 me, ample and conclusive evidence in favor of the 

 principle of gradual evolution." ' 



For example, it happens that the missing link 

 between man and the anthropoids has- not yet 

 been found ; but there is a Miocene link which 

 bridges a greater gulf between two other families 

 of apes. 3 So that kinds of evidence may exist in 

 regard to an order of animals, which are wanting 

 in the case of an individual family of the order. 

 But both the general analogy of Nature and the 

 three great classes of facts considered by Darwin 

 in the special case of man are apparently reck- 

 oned by Virchow as of no practical weight, until 

 the bones of the missing link are safe in the glass 

 cases of a geological museum. I say apparently, 

 because it would be insulting a great man to sup- 

 pose that he really held such an opinion, which, 

 moreover, is inconsistent with the preface to the 

 English translation of his speech. In fact, this 

 admirable speech, in so many ways like that of 

 a cabinet minister reassuring his opposition, con- 

 tains more than one passage which, especially 

 when isolated and printed in capitals, it is easy 

 for the opposition to interpret in a sense more 

 favorable to its own views than that which the 

 speaker had in his mind. 



Not only, however, are important kinds of 

 evidence left out of count, but, as it seems to me 

 — under guidance, as before — the cogency of the 

 evidence from fossils is somewhat overrated. We 

 must be very careful not to be too sure of these 

 conclusions, lest we should teach as established 

 results of science what are, after all, remote and 

 precarious inferences. 



"We must recollect (says Huxley) that any hu- 

 man belief, however broad its basis, however de- 



1 Preface to "Descent of Man." 

 a "Descent of Man," i., 187. 



fensible it may seem, is, after all, only a probable 

 belief, and that our Avidest and safest generaliza- 

 tions are simply statements of the highest degree 

 of probability. Though we are quite clear about 

 the constancy of the order of Nature, at the pres- 

 ent time, and in the present state of things, it by 

 no means necessarily follows that we are justified 

 in expanding this generalization into the infinite 

 past, and in denying, absolutely, that there may 

 have been a time when Nature did not follow a 

 fixed order, when the relations of cause and effect 

 were not definite, and when extra-natural agencies 

 interfered with the general course of Nature." l 



The fact is, we are not absolutely and theoreti- 

 cally certain that these old three-toed and four- 

 toed horse-bones were not made, on purpose to 

 deceive us, by the devil, himself, according to 

 Cuvier, a horned and hoofed, and therefore gram- 

 inivorous, animal, with more than one toe on the 

 hinder limb. 2 



This kind of tangible evidence, which gives us 

 something definite to lay hold of, is peculiarly apt 

 to produce conviction without being properly 

 understood. "Is it really true that our horses 

 are descended from an ancestor with three toes, 

 who lived a long time ago?" "Why, of course 

 it is ; here's his hock." It is something like 

 what occurs in the stage-plays, when somebody 

 rushes in to the hero, and says : " Take these pa- 

 pers, and guard them carefully ; they prove that 

 you are a prince." The sight of the bundle neat- 

 ly done up in red tape produces conviction in a 

 moment. But we subsequently reflect that it 

 may be a somewhat delicate and difficult matter 

 to prove by the aid of papers that a man is him- 

 self or anybody else, and that there are other 

 methods of establishing personal identity, which 

 are not less valid in the courts. 



I am not disparaging this paleontological 

 evidence for the descent of the horse, nor saying 

 a word inconsistent with Huxley's conclusion 

 that it is demonstration, in the only sense in 

 which demonstration can apply to an historical 

 fact. What I wish to point out is, that it con- 

 tains many steps of reasoning which are rather 

 difficult to the apprehension of any one who is 

 not a specialist, and which involve considerations 

 somewhat abstract and remote from the tangible 

 facts on which they are founded. The succession 

 of strata in time, and the mode of their deposi- 

 tion, especially the relations of European strata 



1 "American Addresses," p. 3. 



5 The devil is said to have appeared to Cuvier and 

 threatened to eat him. "Horns? hoofs?" said Cu- 

 vier. "Graminivorous. Can't eat me." "All flesh 

 is grass," replied the devil, with that fatal habit of 

 misapplying Scripture which has always clung to him. 



