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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY S, 1894. 



A CRITIC CRITICISED. 

 Darwinianism : Workmen and Work. By James Hutchi- 

 son Stirling, F.R.C.S., and LL.D. Edin. (Edinburgh : 

 J. and J. Clark, 1S94.) 



DR. STIRLING begins his preface thus : "Perhaps 

 it may be thought that, on the whole, I might very 

 well have spared myself this small venture" ; and such 

 of his readers as know anything of Darwin's theories 

 and works will most cordially agree with him. It has 

 been the present writer's business to read most of the 

 anti-Darwinian literature that has appeared in this 

 country, and though much of it has exhibited extreme 

 ignorance of the whole subject and a total inability to 

 understand the theories and the arguments discussed, in 

 both these respects the present volume fully equals the 

 worst of Its predecessors, while in the effort to belittle 

 Darwin's intellect and to depreciate the value of his life's 

 work it surpasses them all. 



Considerably more than one-third of the volume is 

 occupied with the lives of the three generations of Dar- 

 wins, and though the animus is carefully veiled, there is 

 an unmistakable attempt to show that, while there is 

 much to admire in the moral and social aspects of the 

 whole family, yet intellectually they have been greatly 

 overpraised. In the very first chapter a number of 

 opinions are quoted adverse to Dr. Erasmus Darwin ; and 

 after a chapter devoted to theglorification of Dr. Thomas 

 Brown, the metaphysician, a third chapter is given up to 

 his " Observations on Dr. Darwin's Zoonomia" and the 

 correspondence between them, and we are led to under, 

 stand that the young critic had by far the best of the 

 argument, and that Dr. Darwin lost his temper. 



The seventh to the twelfth chapters are devoted to 

 Charles Darwin ; and at the very commencement we find 

 a passage that gives the keynote to the whole book. 

 After saying that, of course, Mr. Charles Darwin will go 

 down to posterity as one of the first of naturalists — an 

 observer only to be classed with the Linnasuses and 

 the Cuviers — we have this curious statement : " Mr. 

 Francis Darwin — and in the circumstances it is not to 

 disparage him to say so — will not, in all probability, 

 precisely do that ; but, with perhaps a more vigorous or 

 more comprehensive general intellect, he is otherwise, 

 we make bold to say, just about as good a man as his 

 father was, than whom, for genuine worth, it would not 

 be easy to find a better." What does this imply, if not 

 that Darwin, though a preeminently good man, was, 

 intellectually, not remarkable? And the whole of the 

 succeeding chapters show that this is its meaning. 

 Darwin's observing powers are dwelt on, and how much he 

 thinks of technical 7iames (p. 72). Then we are told that he 

 was considered by all his masters and by his father to be 

 below the common standard of intellect (p. 75), and this is 

 repeated at p. 77, and again at p. 117. To enforce this, his 

 own depreciatory phrases— that he learnt almost nothing 

 at school and college, that he could never follow abstract 

 trains of thought, that mathematics were repugnant to 

 him, and that he was compelled to conclude that " his 

 brain was never formed for much thinking" — are fully set 

 NO. 1267, VOL. 49] 



forth. At the same time, Dr. Stirling reiterates, that 

 though quite ordinary intellectually, he was " a very good 

 young man," always trying to improve himself (p. T]) ; 

 that at Cambridge he was " the steady well regulated 

 young man " (p. 84) ; that he was " the good young man '' 

 who, for self-improvement, has interest in, and would have 

 a try at, everything that gives marks. He actually " paid 

 some attention to metaphysical subjects " (p. 105) ; and 

 again — " he was the exemplarily good young man that 

 sought self-improvement in all that was ticketed in society 

 as right." (p. 119.) 



While thus, with subtle ingenuity, " damning with faint 

 praise " the man whose life-work he is striving to de- 

 preciate. Dr. Stirling impresses upon us what, in his 

 opinion, is the intellectual faculty to which Darwin owes 

 his reputation. It is, the love of observing movement ! 

 Thus — " The stir of a beetle in the dust was the first stir 

 that arrested the interest of a Darwin : the convulsion of 

 a continent was possibly the last." (p. 114.) "It was 

 stir that alone claimed his attention, stir that alone woke 

 his single natural life." (p. 113.) '"Observation is an 

 affair of the eyes — ^shallow, so far, and on the surface ; 

 but ideas and their expression no less, spring rather from 

 the depth — the cerebral depth — of the ears." (p. 114.) 

 Here, by the profound philosophy of a Stirling we are 

 informed that because Darwin was an observer and was 

 jiot a musician, therefore he was shallow and of few 

 ideas ! And for several pages this notion is harped upon — 

 stir, movement, watching birds, observing facts, his very 

 soul was " captivated, fascinated, mesmerised, by the en- 

 chantment of physical movement," the Journal shows 

 that he was " only using his eyes there in every paragraph 

 and almost every line"— and thus the general reader, for 

 whom this book is clearly intended, will gain the idea that 

 there is something trivial and weak in minute observ. 

 ation, and that this was what specially characterised 

 Darwin. 



Further matter for depreciation is found in Darwin's 

 remarks on some of the eminent men with whom he 

 associated. He thought Carlyle narrow, because he was 

 utterly unable to appreciate science, and this evidently 

 condemns Darwin in Dr. Stirling's opinion, who calls 

 Mill " his shallow contemporary," and describes the group 

 of eminent men who were more or less intimate with him 

 in these terms : — " The truth is that a feebler general 

 j public has seldom existed than what was atmosphere to 

 Carlyle " — of which Mill and the two Darwins, Tyn- 

 dall, Huxley, and other eminent men were an 

 important part. And when Darwin says of him — " I 

 never met a man with a mind so ill-adapted for scientific 

 research" — Dr. Stirling remarks, with crushing sarcasm, 

 " Scientific research meant for Mr. Darwin only the 

 observation of movement, as in beetles, say ; and there 

 was no such accomplishment in Carlyle." Darwin also 

 knew Buckle, and read his books with great delight, 

 though not accepting all his theoretical views ; but even 

 this limited admiration is too much for Dr. Stirling^ 

 who thereon pours out his wrath for seven pages on what 

 he terms " the commonest, vulgarest, shallowest free- 

 thinkingism." 



Having thus prepared his readers by this fancy picture 

 of the extremely limited range of Darwin's intellect, Ur. 

 Stirling proceeds to deal with the " Origin of Species" 



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