NATURE 



{Jan. 29, 1880 



so that the intermediate varieties will, in the long run. 

 be supplanted and exterminated. 



"On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude 

 of connecting links, between the living and extinct in- 

 habitants of the world, and at each successive period 

 between the extinct and still older species, why is not 

 every geological formation charged with such links ? 

 Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford 

 plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the 

 forms of life? We meet with no such evidence, and this 

 is the most obvious and forcible of the many objections 

 which may be urged against my theory. Why, again. 

 do whole groups of allied species appear, though certainly 

 they often falsely appear, to have come in suddenly on 

 the several geological stages ? Why do we not find great 

 piles of strata beneath the Silurian system, stored with 

 the remains of the progenitors of the Silurian groups of 

 fossils ? For certainly on my theory such strata must 

 somewhere have been deposited at these ancient and 

 utterly unknown epoch in the world's history." 



Did we urge Mr. Darwin's method upon the members 

 of our two great political parlies, we fear we should only 

 be laughed to scorn. And yet is not such an attitude 

 in any body of men, most of all in those men whose duty 

 it is to discover what is best for the welfare of the State, 

 well calculated to inspire honest and thoughtful men with 

 melancholy? Fancy Mr. Gladstone bringing before an 

 audience during one of his great "agitation" tours, not 

 only ail that can be said against any of Lord Beaconsfield's 

 foreign coups, but, on the other side, all that could be 

 said in favour of them, and then striking a judicial balance. 

 And would not Lord Beaconsfield be considered as in- 

 dulging in a huge joke, if, after a Mansion House dinner. 

 he should proceed to treat the conduct of his great 

 opi onent after a similar fair and judicial fishion. And 

 yet this would be the true scientific method of arriving at 

 the truth in public affairs, just as it is in the investigations 

 with which physical and natural science deals. And it 

 is really because our parliamentary agitators despise their 

 audiences that they treat them to only one side of a 

 question ; and if these audiences were as intelligent as 

 they ought to be, they would not listen to any public 

 agitator who treated them so one-sidedly. By and by let 

 us hope that the nation will be so far advanced that poli- 

 ticians will give and the public will insist on being told all 

 tli it can be said both for and against any measure. " Agi- 

 tation," however, is not the best atmosphere in which 

 to carry on scientific work ; quite the opposite. And 

 we should advise those of our public men who are 

 really desirous to discover the science of statesmanship, 

 and to yuide their public conduct by its principles, to 

 leave the method of agitation alone for a period, and take 

 to calm but rigid scientific research in their own depart- 

 ment, and we are sure the results will surprise even them- 

 selves. Scientific method is peculiar to no section of 

 phenomena ; it is rapidly embracing many departments 

 of research that at one time were thought to be beyond 

 the p ile of science ; and we venture to think that in no 

 nent could it be applied with greater success than 

 in <hat department which hitherto has been almost en- 

 tirely under the sway of prejudice and blind party spirit. 

 So Wdliam Harcourt has clearly shown what can be 

 done in sport ; let him and others now try as earnestly 

 i'.Iu t ier even greater success would not attend 

 political prediction in earnest. 



In the case of individuals, if we know their constitu- 

 tions and their circumstances, we> can to some extent 

 guide their development and influence its direction ; wc 

 can to some extent help them in the struggle for exist- 

 ence, and enable them to comply with the law of 

 the survival of the fittest. Whether or not these two 

 laws would justify the recent conduct of foreign affairs 

 by the present Government, it is not for us to say. 

 That conduct we know is justified by many on these 

 grounds ; at all events, we believe that if scientific states- 

 manship, and not mere party prejudice, were the guiding 

 principle in the conduct of public affairs, this nation 

 would be more fitted than ever to survive and play the 

 leading part in the affairs of the world. 



Scientific retrospection is quite as important as scien- 

 tific prediction ; we must recognise all the causes and 

 their interactions or we may go wrong ; but Mr. Bright in 

 his recent sketch of the progress of the country during 

 the past fifty years, altogether ignored what we believe 

 the most important factor — the results of scientific re- 

 search. Even granting the value of all the political 

 measures to which he referred, where would the country 

 have been at the present day had it not been for the 

 results obtained by the quiet workers in science ? Some 

 time ago he gave a great Free Trade speech, in which he 

 dwelt upon the immense benefits which have accrued to 

 the country from, the line of policy indicated by that 

 expression. He went on sketching the progress of free 

 trade, and the concomitant progress of the country, as if 

 no other cause could possibly have been at work, and as 

 if such powers as science, railroads, penny posts, im- 

 proved machinery, increased population, and the like — 

 gave no greater impulse to the development of the nation 

 than an annotated edition of an obscure classic by a 

 still more obscure Oxford don. It is not for us to pro- 

 nounce on the merits or demerits of free trade or protec- 

 tion, but we venture to think that all that can be said in 

 favour of either the one or the other is small when 

 compared with the services rendered to the country by 

 science during the past fifty years. What about railway-, 

 and telegraphs, and the great results of engineering skill, 

 and the application of science to manufactures and 

 agriculture, improvements in navigation, the invaluable 

 practical discoveries of chemistry, and a thousand and 

 one other fruit's of scientific research ? 



Of these the political partisan takes no account ; his func- 

 tion, as compared with that of the true worker in science. 

 seems to us pretty much like that of the organ-blower 

 as compared with the organist. We have said that there 

 are one or two really able men of science in parliament ; 

 but they are only one or two. Probably in no parliament in 

 Europe is science so sparsely represented, and yet we do 

 not advise our real scientific workers to seek admission 

 into an arena that we fear would be little congenial to 

 them. But is it not high time that all our members of 

 parliament should be really well-educated men, know- 

 something about the principles and results of a department 

 which has done so much for the nation and on which its 

 real welfare and progress so largely depends ? Sir 

 William Harcourt has shown that there is no reason why 

 this should not be done, and we trust that not only will 

 lie follow out the course he has so well begun, and do 

 this not merely for a gibe, but that his example will 



