54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



check the progress of accurate knowledge by observation and experi- 

 ment. There are, indeed, some who, fearing (as I think prudently) 

 that, " while a little philosophy inclineth men to atheism, depth in phi- 

 losophy bringeth men's minds about to religion," and desiring to sub- 

 ject the human mind to a bondage as hard and more degrading than 

 that of medieval Rome, would gladly call off interest from the unre- 

 munerative labors which are prompted only by the thirst for knowl- 

 edge and faith in the possibility of learning more and more of the 

 divine order of the world, to pursuits which bring obvious and material 

 utility. There are those again who, fearing (as I think foolishly) that 

 increasing knowledge of this divine order will lower our admiration of 

 its beauty, or that the better a man understands the laws of God the 

 more likely he is to break them, have an unfeigned dislike for natural 

 science in general, and for biology in jDailicular. They rejjeat over 

 again the error of which the Dominican friars, with far greater excuse, 

 were guilty when they imprisoned Galileo. If any such are here, may 

 I venture to tell them^in quietness and in confidence is your strength : 

 the vast fabric of Christian morals is in no danger of being over- 

 turned by the discovery of a new chemical method in the laboratory, 

 or of a hitherto undescribed animalcule. If noisy attacks are made in 

 the injured name of science, you have only to Avait, and you will see 

 these attacks repelled by the true leaders of science themselves, or, at 

 the worst, by the next generation. But if, leaving your secure for- 

 tress of defense, you come down with your rhetoric and your senti- 

 ments, your petitio principii, your ignoratio elenchi, and all your 

 familiar fallacies and tropes, thinking that with such weapons you can 

 meet, on their own ground, men who have spent their lives in the 

 study of science, then no wonder if you suffer grievous defeat. Happy 

 for you if you learn, like another discomfited pilgrim, to betake your- 

 selves to another " weapon." 



But I imagine that some of my audience are saying : " This de- 

 fense would have been necessary before the Royal Commission made 

 their report ; but when that was made, and affirmed the necessity of 

 physiological experiments, and the groundlessness of accusations of 

 cruelty against physiologists, when an act was passed which licenses 

 physiological laboratories, under the very restrictions which you had 

 already imposed upon yourselves, may we not regard the controversy 

 as closed, and the result as satisfactory ? " 



I answer that I have taken up your time with this defense of phys- 

 iological experiments partly because I would fain help, however feebly, 

 in the enlightenment of the public conscience, but also because the 

 result of recent legislation is 7iot satisfactory. 



Science does not work readily in fetters. A system of licenses and 

 certificates, numerous and complicated, obtained with trouble and 

 delay, and revocable at the will of a minister who may, by the acci- 

 dents of party, be at any time amenable to anti-scientific influences, 



