204 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



doctrine called Darwinianism, but I cannot help paying a 

 passing compliment to Dr Darwin when I say that he deserves 

 the thanks of the scientific public for his indefatigable 

 industry in collecting and publishing the multitude of 

 wonderful facts and stories (most of them formerly unknown 

 or unheeded) with which his many interesting and charming 

 volumes abound. 



This is certainly an age of deep and important inquiry, the 

 general scope of which I readily admit to be enterprising and 

 sound, but what I consider to be an exception to this, 

 although some may think otherwise, I consider it a duty to 

 point out. 



Some minds seem to be agitated with a restless desire to 

 penetrate into the unseen mysteries of the inscrutable. For 

 example, we are gravely, I had almost said grotesquely, told 

 by some philosophers of the day, that " when we think, that 

 is, when the mind thinks, there is a vibration given to the 

 brain, and that that vibration thrills through the whole uni- 

 verse!' Also, that when a feather or even a grain of sand 

 falls to the earth, the same thing happens. Able and talented 

 writers have as well, by mathematical demonstration, endea- 

 voured to prove the immortality of the soul, and have even 

 gone the length by the same method of fixing the exact 

 locality of Paradise, and the Great First Cause. 



I do not intend to enter into any argument on such points ; 

 this is neither the time nor the place to do so. I merely hint 

 at what I consider to be erratic and exceptional scientific 

 positions. Neither do I deny the accuracy of such specula- 

 tions, because it is impossible to do so, as I hold it to be 

 equally impossible to prove their truth by any manner or 

 amount of probation, which would be satisfactory to the 

 matter-of-fact ratiocination of the present day. In short, 

 such a style of speculation is simply, in my view, a convert- 

 ible term for conjecture, and can never attain a higher stand- 

 ing point in true science, notwithstanding the ingenuity of 

 the gifted authors of the hypotheses. Such hypotheses I 

 hold to be aberrations from the true line of philosophical 

 treatment, simply because the authors referred to go on the 

 assumption of the illimitaUe power of human reason. Now, 



