744 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Bacon, and other alchemists of former ages, would soon be dropped 

 from the list of chemists and ranked with dreamers and speculators. 



What I have said is, in my humble opinion, warranted by the de- 

 parture Darwin and others have made from true science in their purely 

 speculative studies ; and neither he nor any other searcher after truth 

 expects to hazard great and startling opinions without at the same 

 time courting and desiring criticism ; yet dissension from his views in 

 no way proves him wrong it only shows how his ideas impress the 

 minds of other men. And just here let me contrast the daring of 

 Darwin with the position assumed by one of the great French natural- 

 ists of the present day, Prof. Quatrefages, in a recent discourse of his 

 on the physical character of the human race. In referring to the ques- 

 tion of the first origin of man, he says distinctly that, in his opinion, 

 it is one that belongs not to science ; these questions are treated 

 by theologiaus and philosophers : " Neither here nor at the Museum 

 am I, nor do I wish to be, either a theologian or a philosopher. I 

 am simply a man of science ; and it is in the name of comparative 

 physiology, of botanical and zoological geography, of geology and 

 paleontology, in the name of the laws which govern man as well as 

 animals and plants, that I have always spoken." And, studying man 

 as a scientist, he goes on to say : " It is established that man has two 

 grand faculties, of which we find not even a trace among animals. He 

 alone has the moral sentiment of good and evil ; he alone believes in 

 a future existence succeeding this natural life ; he alone believes in 

 beings superior to himself, that he has never seen, and that are capable 

 of influencing his life for good or evil ; in other words, man alone is 

 endowed with morality and religion." Our own distinguished nat- 

 uralist and associate, Prof. Agassiz, reverts to this theory of evolution 

 in the same positive manner, and with such earnestness and warmth 

 as to call forth severe editorial criticisms, by his speaking of it as a 

 " mere mine of assertions," and the " danger of stretching inferences 

 from a few observations to a wide field ; " and he is called upon to col- 

 lect " real observations to disprove the evolution hypothesis." I 

 would here remark, in defence of my distinguished friend, that scien- 

 tific investigation will assume a curious phase when its votaries are 

 required to occupy time in looking up facts, and seriously attempting 

 to disprove any and every hypothesis based upon proof, some of it 

 not even rising to the dignity of circumstantial evidence. 



I now come to the last point to which I wish to call the attention 

 of the members of the Association in the pursuit of their investiga- 

 tions, and the speculations that these give rise to in their minds. Ref- 

 erence has already been made to the tendency of quitting the physical 

 to revel in the metaphysical, which, however, is not peculiar to this 

 age, for it belonged as well to the times of Plato and Aristotle as it 

 does to ours. More special reference will be made here to the pi*o- 

 clivity of the present epoch among philosophers and theologians to be 



