262 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



ent carried on by means of text-books, is not 

 much better. We take up a book on physics, and 

 are told that the Newtonian theory is still one of 

 the great rival theories of light, although it was 

 utterly overthrown at the beginning of the pres- 

 ent century. We take up a book on astronomy, 

 and are told that the earth is 95,000,000 miles 

 distant from the sun, although the researches of 

 M. Foucault have shown that the distance is only 

 91,000,000. We take up a book on physiology, 

 and read about " a vital principle which suspends 

 natural laws," although every competent physiol- 

 ogist well knows that any such " principle " is as 

 much a distorted figment of the fancy as the basi- 

 lisks which in old times were supposed to haunt 

 secluded cellars. We hear grave lectures on psy- 

 chology, in which the systems of Locke or Kant 

 are laboriously expounded, while of the recent in- 

 novations made by writers like Bain and Mauds- 

 ley we get not the slightest hint. So in history 

 and philology we are too often taught as if Momm- 

 sen and Grote had never written. Grimm's 

 magnificent researches, throwing light upon the 

 whole structure of language, and presenting the 

 history of human thought under an entirely new 

 aspect, are non-existent to the mind of the stu- 

 dent. He pursues the even tenour of his way in 



