PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. 399 



ing, and developing the system of education, and in 

 inventing fixed forms in which to mould it. On the 

 threshold of coming events stands the Prussian law of 

 education. In all the German States larger schools are 

 being built, new educational establishments are set up, 

 the universities are extended, " higher " and " middle " 

 schools are founded. Finally comes the question, What 

 is to be the chief substance of the teaching? ' What Vir- 

 chow thinks it ought and ought not to be, is disclosed by 

 the foregoing quotations. There ought to be a clear dis- 

 tinction made between science in the state of hypothesis, 

 and science in the state of fact. In school teaching the 

 former ought to be excluded. And, as he assumes it 

 to be still in its hypothetical stage, the ban of exclusion 

 ought, he thinks, to fall upon the theory of evolution. 



I now freely offer myself for judgment before the 

 tribunal whose law is here laid down. First and fore- 

 most, then, I have never advocated the introduction 

 of the theory of evolution into our schools. I should 

 even be disposed to resist its introduction before its 

 meaning had been better understood and its utility 

 more fully recognised than it is now by the great body 

 of the community. The theory ought, I think, to 

 bide its time until the free conflict of discovery, argu- 

 ment, and opinion has won for it this recognition. A 

 necessary condition here, however, is that free discus- 

 sion should not be prevented, either by the ferocity of 

 reviewers or the arm of the law; otherwise, as I said 

 before, the work of social preparation cannot go on.. 

 On this count, then, I claim acquittal, being for the 

 moment on the side of Virchow. 



Besides the duties of the chair, which I have been 

 privileged to occupy in London for more than a quarter 

 of a century, and which never involved a word on my 



