284 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



Towards the close of his letter to Tait of date 27 August, 1874, repro- 

 duced in full in the Appendix to Chapter IV, pp. 171-5 above, Maxwell 

 indulged in some exquisite fooling, in which Spencer's utterances are 

 humorously parodied. 



Another sly hit at the synthetic philosopher was given on a post card of 

 date July 27, 1876, when Maxwell asked Tait 



" Have you (read) Willard Gibbs on Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances ? 

 If not, read him. Refreshing after H. Spencer on the Instability of the Homo- 

 geneous." 



In Nature, July 17, 1879, Tait reviewed Sir Edmund Becket's book On 

 the Origin of the Laws of Nature. It opened with these words : 



This is a very clever little book and deserves to be widely read. Its subject, 

 however, is scarcely one for our columns. For it is essentially " apologetic," and its 

 strong point is not so much accurate science as keen and searching logic. It 

 dissects with merciless rigour some of the more sweeping assertions of the modern 

 materialistic schools, reducing them (when that is possible) to plain English so as to 

 make patent their shallow assumptions.... He follows out in fact, in his own way, the 

 hint given by a great mathematician (Kirkman) who made the following exquisite 

 translation of a well-known definition : 



"Evolution is a change from an indefinite, incoherent, homogeneity, to a definite, 

 coherent, heterogeneity, through continuous differentiations and integrations." 



(Translation into plain English.) 



"Evolution is a change from a no-howish, untalkaboutable, all-alikeness, to a 

 some-howish and in-general-talkaboutable not-all-alikeness by continuous something- 

 elsifications and sticktogetherations." 



Some quotations were then given of the method of Sir Edmund Becket 

 in dealing with certain modes of argument, and Tait concluded 



When the purposely vague statements of the materialists and agnostics are thus 

 stripped of the tinsel of high-flown and unintelligible language, the eyes of the 

 thoughtless who have accepted them on authority (!) are at last opened, and they 

 are ready to exclaim with Titania 



" Methinks I was enamoured of an ass." 



As the touch of Ithuriel's spear at once happily revealed the deceiver, these 

 frank and clear exposures of the pretensions of pseudo-science cannot fail of 

 producing great ultimate good. 



In his appendix to First Principles, dealing with Criticisms, Spencer 

 replied at considerable length to the criticism which seemed to be implied in 

 these quotations and statements. He pointed out (p. 566) that a " formula 

 expressing all orders of change in their general course... could not possibly 



