28o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



in which the whole nation may be interested, cannot be restricted to 

 any one. This is freedom of inquiry. But the problem (or hypothesis) 

 is not, without further debate, to be made a doctrine.'''' He will not 

 concede to Dr. Haeckel " that it is a question for the schoolmasters to 

 decide, whether the Darwinian theory of man's descent should be at 

 once laid down as the basis of instruction, and the protoplastic soul be 

 assumed as the foundation of all ideas concerning spiritual being." 

 The professor concludes his lecture thus : " With perfect truth did Ba- 

 con say of old, ' Scientia est potential' But he also defined that knowl- 

 edge ; and the knowledge he meant was not speculative knowledge, 

 not the knowledge of hypotheses, but it was objective and actual knowl- 

 edge. Gentlemen, I think we should be abusing our power, we should 

 be imperiling our power, unless in our teaching we restrict ourselves 

 to this perfectly safe and unassailable domain. From this domain we 

 tnay tnake incursions into the field of problems, and I am sure that 

 every venture of that kind will then find all needful security and sup- 

 port." I have emphasized by italics two sentences in the foregoing 

 series of quotations ; the other italics are the author's own. 



Virchow's position could not be made clearer by any comments of 

 mine than he has here made it himself. That position is one of the 

 highest practical importance. " Throughout our whole German Father- 

 land," he says, " men are busied in renovating, extending, and devel- 

 oping the system of education, and in inventing fixed forms in which 

 to mould it. On the threshold of coming events stands the Prussian 

 law bf education. In all the German states larger schools are being 

 built, new educational establishments are set up, the universities are 

 extended, ' higher ' and ' middle ' schools are founded. Finally comes 

 the question, 'What is to be the chief substance of the teaching?'" 

 What, in regard to science, Virchow thinks it ought and ought not to 

 be, is disclosed by the foregoing quotations. There ought to be a clear 

 distinction made between science in the state of hypothesis and science 

 in the state of fact. From school-teaching the former ought to be 

 excluded. And, inasmuch as it is still in its hypothetical stage, the 

 ban of exclusion ought to fall upon the theory of evolution. 



I now freely ofier myself for judgment before the tribunal whose 

 law is here laid down. First and foremost, then, I have never advo- 

 cated the introduction of the theory of evolution into our schools. I 

 should even be disposed to resist its introduction before its meaning 

 had been better understood and its utility more fully recognized than 

 it is now by the great body of the commimity. The theory ought, I 

 think, to bide its time until the free conflict of discovery, argument, 

 and opinion, has won for it this recognition. In dealing with the com- 

 munity great changes must have timeliness as well as truth upon their 

 side. But, if the mouths of thinkers are stopped, the necessary social 

 preparation will be impossible ; an unwholesome divorce will be estab- 



