THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



tion of science. Such a criticism is altogether futile; it 

 would eliminate the critic and, coming from Huxley, 

 it is especially obnoxious when we remember how he 

 subordinated his own research work to promote Dar- 

 winism, and to attack all those who could not immedi- 

 ately and unreservedly give allegiance to that totally 

 unverified hypothesis. The surprising thing is that 

 Bacon could, in the midst of the distractions of his 

 busy life of affairs, find time to consider abstract 

 questions at all. Nor is it inexcusable and indicative 

 of an unscientific mind that Bacon did not fully ap- 

 preciate the great work of Harvey and Gilbert. 



Huxley indulges in this extraordinary criticism of 

 Bacon's great plan of creating scientific associations : 

 "To anyone who knows the business of investigation 

 practically, Bacon's notion of establishing a company 

 of investigators to work for 'fruits,' as if the pursuit 

 of knowledge were a kind of mining operation and 

 only required well-directed picks and shovels, seems 

 very strange. In science, as in art, and, as I believe, 

 in every other sphere of human activity, there may 

 be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only 

 in one or two of them."^^ It is unworthy of a man of 

 science to depreciate the distinguished achievement 

 of another in order to indulge in a flippant epigram. 

 If we turn to the official Record of the Royal Society 

 we shall find that it opens with this generous acknow- 

 ledgement: "The foundation of the Royal Society 



12 Collected Essays, vol. I, p. 57. 



C 1083 



