326 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



natural selection and sexual selection are indeed discussed, and a 

 desperate effort is made to resuscitate the fast-fading notion of a 

 " great gulf " between man and the lower animals. It is a curious 

 fact that in the old natural history man is supposed to hold, in rela- 

 tion to other animals, a place very similar to that assigned by the 

 Lavoisierian chemistry to oxygen in relation to the remaining ele- 

 ments. Unfortunately, in biology, passion, prejudice, and sophistry, 

 play a more important part than they do in chemistry and physics. 

 The discussion is based upon false principles. We all know the pas- 

 sage in which Mr. Wallace specifies the kind of controversy which 

 alone can be recognized : " As his hypothesis is one which claims 

 acceptance solely as explaining and connecting facts which exist in 

 Nature, he expects facts alone to be brought to disprove it." 1 This 

 method of discussion finds here comparatively little favor. Theories 

 are tested by their supposed moral or religious bearings, or by their 

 agreement with the author's a priori views. If w r e bring facts to 

 prove the existence of reason in animals, we are told that we do not 

 know what reason is ; if we find in them evidences of moral life, it is 

 said that we have " not even the faintest conception of what a moral 

 nature is." If we show that they possess language, there follows the 

 ready quirk that we confound emotional language with intellectual. 

 That Mr. Mivart's own views of moral nature and of reason must be 

 correct, no one, of course, is supposed to doubt ; nor is the spirit of 

 the argument sounder than its method. The author speaks, not as a 

 judge calmly weighing the arguments on either side, and anxious 

 merely that the truth should be ascertained, but as a passionate and 

 eager prosecuting counsel, or rather as a procureur du roi (king's at- 

 torney), skillfully bringing forward every circumstance, every point 

 actual or inferred, relevant or irrelevant which may in any wise 

 damage the defendants, and with equal dexterity concealing whatso- 

 ever might tell in their favor. Deep personal hatred toward the 

 " Agnostics " and their doctrines the odium theologicum in its most 

 malignant form pervades the entire book. Mr. Mivart may doubt- 

 less be able to meet Mr. Darwin, Mr. Lewes, Mr. Spencer, or Dr. Hux- 

 ley, on neutral ground or in private life, on terms of ordinary cour- 

 tesy ; but it is because the man is better and greater than his book. 

 We find here nothing of that fine manly spirit expressed in the old 

 adage, " Plato is my friend, but truth is more my friend." On the 

 contrary, there is one passage in which Mr. Mivart almost seems to 

 apologize for having, on some former occasion, spoken of Mr. Darwin 

 with too much courtesy. For this he has now atoned to an extent 

 almost ludicrous. We should not have felt in the least surprised had 

 we found it proved of course by strictly metaphysical arguments 

 that the author of the "Origin of Species" is the veritable trans- 

 gressor who 



1 " Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," p. 13. 



