SCIENCE AND THE WAR 117 



we have no lack of instances of scientific men 

 posing as authorities on subjects on which they 

 had no real right to be heard, and, what is worse, 

 being accepted as such by the uninstructed crowd. 

 Thus Professor Huxley, who, as some one once 

 said, " made science respectable," was wont to 

 utter pontifical pronouncements on the subject 

 of Home Rule for Ireland. His knowledge of 

 that country was quite rudimentary, and his 

 visits to it had been as few and as brief as if he 

 had been its Sovereign ; but that did not prevent 

 him from delivering judgment, nor unfortunately 

 deter many from following that judgment as if 

 it had been inspired. I am not now arguing as 

 to the rights and wrongs of Huxley's view on the 

 matter in question : I have my own opinion on 

 that. What I am urging is that his position, 

 whether as a zoologist or, incidentally, as a great 

 master of the English language, in no way entitled 

 him to express an opinion or rendered him a better 

 authority on such a question than any casual 

 fellow-traveller in a railway carriage might easily 

 be. 



This is bad enough ; but what is far worse is 

 when scientific experts on the strength of their 

 study of Nature assume the right of uttering 

 judicial pronouncements on moral and sociological 

 questions, judgments some at least of which are 

 subversive of both decency and liberty. Thus 

 we have lately been told that it is " wanton 

 cruelty " to keep a weak or sickly child alive ; and 

 the medical man, under a reformed system of 

 medical ethics, is to have leave and licence to 



