PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. 645 



need not keep them to ourselves; we are ready to communi- 

 cate them to all the world, and say ' There is the problem; 

 that is what we strive for.' . . . The investigation of such 

 problems, in which the whole nation may be interested, 

 cannot be restricted to any one. This is Freedom of 

 Inquiry. But the problem (or hypothesis) is not, without 

 further debate, to be made a doctrine." He will not con- 

 cede to Ur. Haeckel " that it is a question for the school- 

 masters to decide, whether the Darwinian theory of man's 

 descent should be at once laid down as the basis of instruc- 

 tion, and the protoplastic soul be assumed as the foundation 

 of all ideas concerning spiritual being." The professor 

 concludes his lecture thus: " With perfect truth did Bacon 

 say of old ' Scientia est potential But he also defined 

 that knowledge; and the knowledge he meant was not 

 speculative knowledge, not the knowledge of hypotheses, 

 but it was objective and actual knowledge. Gentlemen, I 

 think we should be abusing our power, we should be im- 

 periling our power, unless in our teaching we restrict 

 ourselves to this perfectly safe and unassailable domain. 

 From this domain we may make incursions into the field of 

 problems, and I am sure that every venture of that kind 

 will then find all needful security and support." I have 

 emphasized by italics two sentences in the foregoing series 

 of quotations; the other italics are the author's own. 



Virchow's position could not be made clearer by any 

 comments of mine than he has made it himself. That 

 position is one of the highest practical importance. 

 " Throughout our whole German Fatherland," he says, 

 "men are busied in renovating, extending, and developing 

 the system of education, and in inventing fixed forms in 

 which to mold 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 Virchow thinks it ought and ought 

 not to be, is disclosed by the foregoing quotations. There 

 ought to be a clear distinction 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 



