190 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



question of philosophy in the role of a pliant sycophant, and 

 the works of a Wells or a van Loon are lauded to the skies, de- 

 spite the glaring examples of scientific inaccuracy and igno- 

 rance, in which they abound. 



This partiality is sometimes carried to a degree that makes 

 it perfectly preposterous. Thus it is by no means an infrequent 

 thing to find scientists dismissing, as unworthy of a hearing, 

 a philosopher like Hans Driesch, who spent the major por- 

 tion of his life in biological research, and combined the tech- 

 nical discipline of a scientist with the mental discipline of a 

 logician. The chemist, H. E. Armstrong, for instance, sees in 

 the mere label "philosopher" a sufficient reason for barring 

 his testimony. ''Philosophers," jeers the chemist, with flippant 

 irrelevance, ''must go to school and study in the purlieus of 

 experimental science, if they desire to speak with authority 

 on these matters." (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 528.) 

 Such is his comment on Driesch, yet Driesch did nothing at 

 all, if he did not do far more than Armstrong prescribes as 

 a prerequisite for authoritative speaking. In James Harvey 

 Robinson, on the contrary, we have an example of the tendency 

 of scientists to coddle philosophers who assume a docile, 

 deferential, and submissive attitude towards every generaliza- 

 tion propounded in the name of natural science. In sheer 

 gratitude for his uncritical acquiescence, his incapacitation as 

 a nonspecialist is considerately overlooked, and he can confess, 

 without the slightest danger of discrediting his own utterances: 

 "I am not ... a biologist or palaeontologist. But I have 

 had the privilege of consorting familiarly with some of the 

 very best representatives of those who have devoted their 

 lives to the patient study of the matters involved in this con- 

 troversy. I think I quite understand their attitude." {Harper's 

 Magazine, June, 1922, p. 68.) By his own testimony he is a 

 scientific amateur, but this does not, in the least, prevent 

 him from "speaking with authority" or from being lionized 

 in scientific circles as an evolutionary "defender of the faith." 

 Clearly, it is the nature of their respective views, and not the 



