578 



NATURE 



[April 20, 1 899 



animals and the "lowest psychical powers" of man. 

 The general conclusion is that there is a distinction in 

 kind between man and animals, and the crucial differ- 

 ence is expressed by the statement that " men speak 

 but animals are dumb." From this we are led to the 

 seventh chapter, on " Language and Science." 



Regarding speech, whether e.xpressed by mere sounds, 

 by articulation, or by gesture, as an expression of in- 

 tellectual faculties of the higher order, the author will not 

 allow that animals possess any power of intercommuni- 

 cation beyond the lower form of emotional language ; 

 and he devotes some pages to an adverse criticism of the 

 views of the late Dr. Romanes on this subject. With 

 respect to the origin of language, Dr. Mivart offers no 

 theory of his own, but concludes that intellectual thought 

 was in man antecedent to language ; in other words, that 

 thought is the cause of language, and not language the 

 cause of thought. The general idea which the reader 

 will gather from this chapter is that, in the author's 

 opinion, there occur from time to time breaches of con- 

 tinuity or new departures in the order of nature, and that 

 the transition from non-living to living matter, from non- 

 sentient to sentient beings {e.g. plants to animals), or 

 from sentient organisms to the intellectual organism, i.e. 

 from animals to man, are cases in point. 



The eighth chapter is entitled "The Intellectual Ante- 

 cedents of Science," and begins with a demolition of the 

 ultra-sceptical intellectual nihilist whose mind has no 

 certainty as to the truth of anything which cannot be 

 proved. The author insists 



"that the mind of each one of us . . . already possesses 

 absolute certainty about some things, and that his [the 

 reader's] intellect declares that things which are clearly 

 seen to be evident in and by themselves, possess the 

 greatest certainty which it is possible for the human 

 mind to attain to, and that such certainty is abundant " 

 (p. 225). 



Further on (p. 227) it is pointed out that this certainty 

 is attained ultimately by thought and not sensation, and 

 that intellectual perception or intuition is the supreme 

 and ultimate criterion of truth. The reality of the ego 

 and the ditTerence between the objective and the sub- 

 jective is considered to be proved in the former case, and 

 bridged over in the latter by the memory. The power of 

 memory is, in fact, regarded as proof of the continuous 

 existence of the individual and the reality of " objectivity." 

 It is conscious memory which unites the past with the 

 present, and enables the individual to declare " I am." 

 This faculty of conscious memory is considered by the 

 author to be another profound distinction between man 

 and other animals (p. 240). 



In the following chapter, which deals with the "Causes 

 of Scientific Knowledge," Dr. Mivart begins by quarrel- 

 ling with the old statement that " everything must have 

 a cause," which he considers to be quite untenable 

 because it would lead us to " a regrcssus ad infinitum.^' 

 He replaces the ancient dictum by the statement that we 

 do see " that every change or new existence is, and must 

 be, due to some cause." Presumably this is based on the 

 idea that the question of "causation" only arises when 

 some change or new state in the existing order of things 

 is observed. Hy " causation " it must be understood that 

 NO. 1538, VOL. 59] 



the author means something more than mere sequence : 

 he argues for a "force" or "power" as a primary ulti- 

 mate idea which cannot be resolved into simpler concep- 

 tions (p. 261). This force or power is not physically 

 perceptible by the senses, but is intellectually perceptible 

 Herein Dr. Mivart of course finds himself in antagonism 

 to Mr. Herbert .Spencer. This kind of causation is 

 subsequently (p. 263) exalted into a law — "a necessary 

 and universal truth which carries with it its own evi- 

 dence ' — and out of this law is further evolved the great 

 principle which underlies all science, viz. the uniformity 

 of nature. The reader will at once confront this 

 principle of uniformity with the statements in Chapter 

 viii. concerning the breaches of continuity in the order 

 of nature to which we have already called attention. Was 

 the law of uniformity broken, for example, when " in- 

 organic " matter became living ? According to Dr. Mivart 

 discontinuity must be regarded as part of natural 

 uniformity (p. 288). 



In this chapter there is discussed also the theory of 

 natural selection in so far as it bears upon epistemology. 

 The author's views respecting the Darwinian theory have 

 long been before the scientific public, and are reiterated 

 in this work in such statements as the following : — 



" By this system, then, unreason may be regarded as 

 practically lord of the universe, and the source of all the 

 beauties and harmonies which exist in organic nature " 



(P- 273)- 



The inadequacy of natural selection to account for the 

 genesis of our perceptions of an extended external world 

 is considered at some length, and it is contended that 

 there are many other kinds of knowledge or " intuitions" 

 which cannot be attributed to natural selection. The 

 general drift of the chapter may be, perhaps, summed up 

 in the statement that the universe is an orderly and not a 

 disorderly arrangement, and that since order suggests in- 

 telligence and reason there is such an intelligence and 

 reason underlying it all. The "breaches of continuity," 

 such as the passage from non-living to living matter, 

 from the insentient to the sentient, from the irrational to 

 the rational (p. 296), are considered by the author to 

 require " an eternal and ever-present reason latent in all 

 the phenomena of which we can take cognisance." It 

 may be added that the combination of hydrogen and 

 oxygen to produce something so very unlike its con- 

 stituents as water (p. 285), and the discontinuous vari- 

 ations (? monstrosities) treated of by Bateson in his work 

 on variation (p. 288) are pressed into the service as 

 " new departures " calling for special explanation, and so 

 Dr. Mivart slips an external intelligence into the 

 cosmos. 



The tenth and concluding chapter is entitled " The 

 Nature of the Groundwork of Science." In discussing 

 the matter of science, or the field wherein scientific 

 workers have to labour, the author comes to some very 

 paradoxical conclusions respecting matter, motion, space 

 and time. The breaches of continuity or new departures 

 again figure as reasons for recognising 



"that the universe is pervaded ... by something which 

 our intellect reveals to us as having necessarily some 

 analogy wiih our own reason and intelligence, however 

 inconceivably greater it may be" (p. 310). 



