124 



FALSE PHILOSOPHY. 



tion and experiment ; they are spoken of as if they were 

 doing their best to retard progress, and were making futile 

 efforts to extinguish thought. Useless alike to themselves 

 and humanity, such persons are said to display " powerless 

 anger," and are supposed to tremble lest what they idiotically 

 call their souls should be destroyed by matter. 



It will be very positively asserted that I have unfairly 

 represented the views of those with whom I do not agree, 

 just as the accusation of arrogance and irrepressible egotism 

 is met by asseverations concerning the true humility of the 

 most distinguished popular scientific writers of our time. 

 The philosophic thinkers of these days, it has been suggested, 

 think many serious questions more difficult of solution than 

 did the authorities of a former period ; they see their inca- 

 pacity more distinctly than their predecessors did; they 

 shudder at the credulity exhibited by many of the best 

 minds that have passed away; and have only, it is suggested, 

 an intense but very innocent desire that the people should 

 believe only what can be proved to be true. 



I confess I am not able to accept these excuses. For in 

 many of the remarks I have deemed it right to criticise in 

 this book, the reader will find not a few illustrations of implicit 

 confidence in their own views, significantly expressed by 

 the writers themselves, with that unmistakable air of pro- 

 fessed intellectual superiority which generally characterises 

 their teaching, and which is, in certain cases, perfectly 

 ludicrous. The spirit displayed, in not a few instances, 

 approaches that of a tyrannical potentate invested with 

 arbitrary and absolute power ; of true scientific feeling it is 

 sometimes difficult to detect the faintest spark. The aim 

 seems to be to excite terror, and awe, and wonder to 



