JcsE 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



241 



obvious, doubts even all theories which seem most tho- 

 roughly established. The rain which seems to come from 

 the skies, which had been traced to the clouds, and thence 

 to unseen pure transparent vapour, he traces yet farther 

 back by circuitous aerial courses to other regions, and thence 

 to the sea, while ho finds as the actual cause of rain that 

 which to the ancients seemed the gi-eat opponent of rain, 

 the destroyer of the clouds— the might and glory of the sun. 

 And so, in all matters wliich the man of science of old 

 explained simply and easily, the modern student of science 

 weighs and balances and doubts, till at last he is able to 

 show Iiow, but modestly admits that he cannot explain ir/iy, 

 the so simply explained because so thoroughly misunder- 

 stood phenomena take place. 



Now, neither the constant study of cause and effect in 

 physical or mental phenomena, nor the development of a 

 habit of most cautiously dealing with all evidence obtain- 

 able, can fit the student of science to express an opinion on 

 some political or legi.slative matter into which he has not 

 made careful and special inquiry. If a Darwin or a Newton, 

 departing from his natural or acquired character, were to 

 undertake to decide on a point of statesmanship or of 

 religion, in which he admitted that he had fcxken no special 

 interest, and about which he had made no investigations, 

 his opinion would deserve no more respect (but, be it 

 noticed, it would deserve no less) than that of a merchant 

 or a landowner, who had managed to get into Parliament, 

 and had there supplemented his commercial or agricultural 

 Gxperience by more or less careful study of Parliamentary 

 procedure. The former would be forgetting the lessons 

 of his scientific life, forsaking the advantage of his scientific 

 training— and would, almost certainly, fall into some gross 

 blunder. But the latter is foiling into such blunders aU 

 the time ; and the student of science is among the innocent 

 members of the social body who have to pay for such blun- 

 dering — and a tolerably heavy price we pay, too. 



If a man of approved scientific powers, however, trained to 

 cautious study of carefully accumulated evidence, speaks 

 about a political or a religious matter with some degree of 

 confidence, it may be usually taken for granted that he /las 

 given the matter careful attention — simply because it would 

 be running counter to the whole spirit of his career to speak 

 in that manner of a matter that he had not studied. For 

 this reason, I should myself attach very much greater weight 

 to the definitely expressed opinion of a Tyndall or a Stokes, 

 a Huxley or a Spencer — of any scientific man, in fact, not a 

 specialist (specialists being mostly narrow-minded) — about 

 any political or religious matter, than I would to the opinion 

 of a politician or a priest. For while I should feel well 

 assured that the man of science must have studied the sub- 

 ject or he would not speak about it (the chances being 

 rather the other way with the politician and the priest), I 

 should know that his study of the subject, checked by the 

 scientific habit of cautious and law-seeking inquiry, would 

 be bound to be much more satisfactory than that made by 

 men less cognisant of the necessity for studying causal rela- 

 tions and for exercising constant caution. 



Unfortunately, students of science very seldom do express 

 an opinion about political or religious matters — which is 

 another w.ay of saying that they seldom make political or 

 religious matters the subject of inquiry. When they do, the 

 unscientific necessarily imagine they are going beyond their 

 depth. But in reality, the student of science recognises how 

 thoroughly the ordinary politician goes outside his depth in 

 neai'ly all that he undertakes to discuss or deal with. Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer has weH shown in the introductory pages 

 of his " Sociology " the absurdity of the calm security, the 

 overweening self-confidence, with which the average poli- 

 tician (who generally knows nothing about politics beyond 



its vocabulary — which is naught) undertakes to make and 

 alter laws for regulating relations far more complex than 

 those with which the student of science ordinarilj' deals. 



As for Professor Huxley's lemarks, if he was out of his 

 depth in making them, it must be assumed that the student 

 of science may only enter very shallow waters indeed. This 

 is by no means saying that I agree with him (it chances, 

 indeed, that I do not), only that I think he has at least as 

 good a right to form and formulate an opinion .as the ave- 

 rage member of Parliament, or even the editors of the daily 

 papers and the " young buccaneers of the press " over whom 

 they hoid command. Any one who knows how and by 

 whom newspaper articles are written must smile at the 

 weight which the average reader of newspapers attaches to 

 their trivial utterances. Even as one who has studied our 

 universities smiles when he sees men and women — aye, the 

 aged and experienced — moved by the commonplace teachings 

 of men who till a year or so before had "vexed the souls of 

 deans " (and barely escaped plucking in mild examinations 

 because of their \indue devotion to boating and cricket, cards 

 and billiards), so must we smile, though with a touch of 

 sadness, to see the business men of a nation accepting the 

 politic-il teachings of half-fledged youngsters, foilures in 

 their selected professions, ^^Titing at the order of men who 

 know even less than themselves about politics or statecraft. 

 Yet the confident air of these weaklings, the energy of their 

 assumed enthusiasm, and the violence of their party zeal, 

 produce for more impression on the many than the well- 

 weighed and therefore cautious opinions of the thoughtful 

 student of political and sociological history. 



Professor Huxley has simply pointed out that our leading 

 politicians ought to lead, not to be led ; that trying to find 

 out what is the average opinion of the nation, the opinion 

 held by the gi-eatest number not by the best quality, and 

 then following that opinion, is a course likely to result in 

 no great achievements. He has expressed admiration for Mr. 

 Parnell as leading, not being led, but not for 'Mr. Parnell's 

 views — the success of which, he thinks, will be Mr. Parnell's 

 ruin. And if he has expressed his objection to Home Rule, in 

 which certainly he is not particularly original, he is modest 

 enough in his ideas not to point out the course along which 

 he would like to see some statesman guiding the country. 



But to some half-trained leader-writer in a daily paper, 

 who would treat with respect the utterances of a man whose 

 whole life had been passed in huckstering on a rather large 

 scale, the opinion of a keen and earnest thinker, trained to 

 careful reasoning and to caution in forming an opinion, 

 appeal's — so ignorant is he — as floundering no worthier of 

 respect than he knows his own ideas to be. 



In this country, as in America, we need the well-weighed 

 thoughts of the minds which recognise law and causation ; 

 we have long had much more than enough of the utterances 

 of those who recognise only luck and sequence, whose legis- 

 lative measures have as much real relation to the needs of 

 the nation as the thrice turning of a gambler's chair or a 

 change of the pack he plays with has to the success of his 

 play. — N^ewcastle Weekly Chronicle. 



AppROACHiNfi Extinction of the Lion. — When we hear 

 that the lion of the desert is threatened with extinction, we 

 cannot regi-et the circumstance, king though he be of animals. 

 Sportsmen and zoologists may lament, but others cannot, 

 when we hear that the Government of Algeria is paying a 

 high premium {il. a head) for lions killed in that country, 

 and that within the last eleven years a sum of 400^. has 

 been paid in this way, telling of 200 lions destroyed. The 

 lion of the desert is, in fact, becoming a thing of the past.^ 

 Xewcastle Weekly Chronicle. 



