or who- 



BIGOTRY IN SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY. 327 



" Filled the butchers' shops with large blue flies," 



" "With foul earthquakes ravaged the Caracas, 

 And raised the price of sugars and tobaccos." 



Suppose, in all sober sadness, an inquirer knowing nothing more 

 of Darwin than what he might learn out of " Lessons from Nature." 

 Would he not go away with the impression that our great English 

 naturalist had done little beyond launching a " puerile hypothesis," 

 and had played a very unimportant and, if anything, rather injuri- 

 ous part in the development of biological science ? Yet every can- 

 did critic must admit that, were the theory of natural selection 

 superseded to-morrow, to Darwin would still belong the merit of 

 effecting in natural history a transformation as signal as that wrought 

 in astronomy by Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler, or in chemistry by 

 Lavoisier ; of bestowing upon zoology and botany a definite purpose 

 and a direction for research such as before were wanting. His works 

 would still remain a treasury of observations and of suggestions, and 

 the impulse he has given to the science would never die away. In 

 England, Germany, America, naturalists have sprung up as if by 

 magic in obedience to his spell, and Mr. Mivart himself can hardly be 

 excluded from their number. 



We need scarcely add that a critic unjust to persons will not be 

 much more trustworthy as regards their discoveries and their doc- 

 trines. The evidence in favor of natural selection and indeed of 

 evolution altogether is strictly cumulative, and as such, whatever 

 weight it may carry to the patient and dispassionate inquirer, it is 

 peculiarly open to the attacks of an opponent at one skillful and un- 

 scrupulous. We do not, of course, mean to accuse Mr. Mivart of 

 deliberate unscrupulousness. We all know the words in themselves 

 literally reeking w T ith hypocrisy in which " the Church " pronounced 

 sentence of death on Giordano Bruno : " Ut quam clementissime et citra 

 sanguinis epusionempimiretur" (Let him be punished as leniently as 

 may be, and without shedding blood). Yet even on that occasion 

 we should be reluctant to declare that the judges were sinning 

 against better light and knowledge. Just so here : Mr. Mivart doubt- 

 less believes and feels what he says, and considers his own line of 

 criticism fair and honorable. We know that man is an adept in self- 

 delusion, and of all men the metaphysician who has cultivated the art 

 s'egarer avec methode (of going astray methodically) is most likely to 

 go unconsciously astray. 



We come now to a most painful subject, which, indeed, we w r ould 

 gladly pass over were not its consideration absolutely imperative. 

 Mr. Mivart complains that in one particular instance Mr. Darwin de- 

 parts from his ordinary courtesy to opponents. We are therefore 

 justified in assuming that he regards courtesy to opponents as a duty 

 at least in others. Bearing in mind this circumstance, we turn to 



