428 E inter on Gi^owth and Inheritance 



possessed by any true classical scholar, and certainly by 

 any successful statesman. As Cicero wondered how two 

 augurs could ever meet without laughing, so we wonder 

 how experts in merely physical science can sit with grave 

 faces and listen to the exaggerated praises and unmerited 

 professions of exceptional veneration which are now so 

 commonly uttered in their presence on festive occasions — 

 too often by timid Churchmen who little know their own 

 strength and the real feebleness of those before whom they 

 tremble. 



But to return to the sentence which called forth these 

 remarks, Eimer says: 'Species are only a collection of 

 individuals, and genera a collection of species.' But certainly 

 he would not (no naturalist could) deny that 'individuals' 

 are really existing things — substantial, material entities in 

 reruvi natura. Yet no less certainly he must deny that 

 ' species ' are anything of the kind. He may have in his 

 cabinet few or many ' individuals ' of any given ' species,' 

 but we utterly defy him to place there a ' species ' either 

 impaled with an insect-pin or preserved in a bottle of 

 alcohol. Species, genera, families, etc., are ideal entities; 

 real in so far as their essential characters may be exem- 

 plified in really subsisting things, but in themselves they 

 are mental conceptions — essential, ideal, and immaterial. 

 We claim to be very earnest realists ourselves, but most 

 certainly we should never think of locking up the ' species ' 

 horse in our stable, or trusting ourselves to its guidance 

 over moor and field. 



In this passage Eimer has hopelessly and most obtusely 

 confounded not only two distinct things, but two things of 

 quite opposite natures. A man who has given forth such a 

 statement has thereby proclaimed himself to be one who is 

 absolutely unfit to teach. 



With this clue to the intellectual calibre of our professor. 



