July 13, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



23 



They also issue already formed from the mouth, and some- 

 times a portion of the base is severed, continues to live, 

 and in time grows into a complete actinia. Actiniie feed, 

 in their free, natural condition, upon medus.'e and other 

 small crustaceous and molluscous animals, which they seize 

 with their tentacles, and afterwards disgorge what they 

 cannot digest. In aquaria they are fed successfully upon 

 fragments of meat. Many species are eaten as a delicacy 

 in tropical countries, where they are much more numerous 

 than on the British coasts. 



MR. LESLIE STEPHEN ON THE 

 INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE.* 



" ~rF it were a qualification for his office," Mr. Stephen 

 j_ remarked, "to be impartial in the sense of not 

 having an opinion on the matter, it would have been hardly 

 possible to select a less qualified chairman in all London 

 than himself. He believed that the spread of scientific 

 influence had not only not been bad, but that the thing of 

 which we stand most in need is a great deal more scientific 

 thonglit and method in every direction. He felt, how- 

 ever, that his case was so strong that he could afford 

 to give points to the opposite side ; and for this reason, 

 and because, to a certain extent, he was prepared 

 to go with the opener in his remarks, he hoped to 

 be able to point out fairly where the various argu- 

 ments which had been used found their proper place. 

 The only definition, or rather description, of science 

 which ever appeared satisfactory to him was that — Science 

 is that body of truths which may be held to be defini- 

 nitely established, so that no reasonable person doubts 

 them. To speak of mischievous science is, therefore, to 

 assert that truth is mischievous, an assertion to which no 

 one would be likely to seriously agree, especially in such 

 a place as University College. If it is to be supposed 

 that science is mischievous, it must either be meant that 

 certain false theories which call themselves science are 

 wrongful, which may well bo the case, or that the scientific 

 progress at the present time happens to bo exercising a 

 mischievous influence. 



" No one denies that science may accidentally lead to a 

 large number of our particular mischiefs, as in the case of 

 the invention of dynamite ; but it cannot in any way be 

 admitted on that account that science is mischievous. For 

 the question arises, if science is bad, what can be substi- 

 tuted for it 1 and in what way will these mischiefs be 

 remedied if we are not scientific ? It is impossible to 

 say that erroneous impressions will make us better off 

 "than correct ones. For instance, the old belief in 

 medicine subjected people to years of torture be- 

 cause of supposed witchcraft. In India it is still 

 believed in some parts that smallpox is a demon, and 

 efforts are made to propitiate it, so that, if unnecessary 

 torture and small-pox are evils, we are better for the light 

 which the scientific man has thrown on these subjects. 

 vStill it must be admitted that in particular ways the 

 •development of science has produced new evils as well as 

 new benefits, and for that matter no sort of progress is 

 made without collateral evils. But the question then re- 

 mained as to the remedy, and in his opinion that remedy 



* Remarks by Mr. Leslie Stephen in summinp: up a debate at 

 ' Niversity College, London, on the motion by Mr. B. Paul Newman ; 

 '■ That the spread of scientific thought and method has, on the 

 whole, exercised an injurious influence on English societj-." The 

 motion was supported by Jlr. N. Jlickloman, and opposed by tlie 

 licv. A. Capes Tarbolton and Jlr. .1. G. Pease. 



could be very shortly described as more science and not less. 

 There is no sort of conflict between a scientific and a literary 

 education. Everybody ought to have some literary know- 

 ledge, and everybody ought to be taught the first principles 

 of science ; even a smattering of chemistry might be useful 

 in a literary pursuit. He himself had found what little 

 smattering of science he had acquired at Cambridge and 

 elsewhere of the greatest use in every other kind of study. 

 The habits of thought and feeling acquired by the study 

 even of mathematics, which he took to be the most un- 

 interesting science there is to most individuals, are very 

 useful when one comes to need accurate thinking'any where, 

 even in matters purely literary. 



" It had been urged that science prevents a man from 

 taking the same sort of pleasure in nature as he would do 

 without it. Wordsworth was very fond of saying this, and 

 of denouncing generally the scientific position. But the 

 reason of that was that Wordsworth knew nothing about 

 science. The result was that there is no other instance 

 of so great a poet leaving oft writing great poems so 

 early in his career. All his finest poems were ■mitten 

 in his early life ; and the reason is that he went 

 mooning about the mountains by himself, and did not get 

 any new thoughts. In contrast to him Goethe stands out 

 as a man great in both science and poetry, and is a typical 

 example of the way in which they react on one another. 

 Whenever it was suggested that science is opposed to a 

 love of nature, the speaker always thought of the greatest 

 man of science of modern times, JNIr. Darwin, whose books 

 are, apart from their scientific value, quite delightful in 

 their literary style. Xo one, for instance, could read his 

 " Voyage in the Beagle" without seeing that Darwin's love 

 of science was only a part of his love of nature. There is, 

 indeed, no conflict between the two, and a man cannot 

 strengthen the one side of his nature without at the same 

 time contributing to strengthen the other. Indeed, the 

 reason why so many of our living poets are inferior to 

 those who wrote at the beginning of this century, or to 

 those of an earlier generation still, is just that they have 

 not had the pluck to look science Ln the face, but have 

 only taken a passing and sideway glance at it. 



"An important point in the argument — namely, the 

 relation of science to morality — was suggested by the 

 remarks that had been made on the subject of vivisection. 

 The vivisection question, in the first place, did not seem to 

 him to be quite fairly stated. People speak as though 

 vivisection were a recent practice just introduced by a 

 hard-hearted scientific generation. But in point of fact 

 vivisection had been going on for many centuries. The 

 thing which was new was the ol)jection to it. The stock 

 argument in favour of vivisection — that liy it the discovery 

 of the circulation of the blood was made — is only one of 

 many instances. 



" It had been remarked by a previous speaker, with 

 whom he was inclined to agree, that there had been a great 

 increase in liumanity in modern times, and that this increase 

 is to be attributed to the growth of science. It is not 

 true, for instance, to say that the abolition of excessive 

 and cruel punishments has been due to the action of a few 

 energetic but unscientific individuals. They were, on the 

 coittrary, put down by the growth of the scientific spirit of 

 the age — a spirit closely allied to humanity, and which 

 showed itself in the philosophy of the eightcentli contury, 

 especially in the writings of Hume and Bentham. They 

 gave up the idea of punishment as simply a revenge to 

 gratify the fc^elings of the punishers, and took the Utili- 

 tarian ground, that it must only be administered in so far as 

 it is beneficial to society. They were thus inevitably drawn 

 into denouncing excessive punishments. Komilly, who 



