554 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VII. No. 1223 



There are times, however, when we find 

 that skepticism is not combined with open- 

 mindedness. Many a great advance in sci- 

 ence has 'been greeted with a storm of ridi- 

 cule or abuse by skeptics with closed minds. 

 Of Van't Hoff they cried- "See this young 

 man fly his Pegasus borrowed, no doubt, 

 from the stalls of the veterinary college 

 where he is a professor ! " So it was with 

 Semmelweis and Oliver "Wendell Holmes, 

 the discoverers of the infectious nature of 

 child-bed fever, and so also with Darwin 

 and a host of others. 



"We used to debate the Darwinian Hy- 

 pothesis privately, ' ' writes Professor Shaler 

 of the time when he was a pupil of 

 Agassiz, ' ' for to be caught at it was as it is 

 for the faithful to be detected in a careful 

 study of a heresy. We had both read the 

 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Crea- 

 tion,' Lamarck's 'Philosophic Zoologique,' 

 and first the Darwin-Wallace papers and 

 then the newly published 'Origin of Spe- 

 cies. ' Agassiz had given a large part of his 

 lectures in one term to denouncing these 

 works and to the assertion that species were 

 absolute creations. He never even sug- 

 gested how the special creation came about, 

 and when, at the end of a lecture, I pressed 

 him for some conception of how a species 

 first appeared, he stated that it was a 

 'thought of God!' "^° An answer which, 

 though it may be ,true philosophically, is 

 biologically speaking quite irrelevant! 



This fact, that skepticism is so often di- 

 vorced from openmindedness, limits greatly 

 the influence of the university upon the 

 common man. The common man has dis- 

 covered in the universities not only the 

 agnostic attitude but also this counterfeit 

 which he improperly calls ' ' conservatism. ' ' 

 This is an unfortunate use of a good word 



10 Nathaniel S. Shaler, "Autobiography," p. 

 128. 1909. 



and leads us into endless ambiguities. 

 "Conservatism" is the sentiment which 

 seeks to preserve all that is truest and best 

 both in the present and in antiquity. 

 When on mature consideration we have de- 

 cided what is best, it is conservatism which 

 directs us reverently to cherish it. But the 

 counterfeit which the common man has de- 

 tected is the mind which, though skeptical, 

 is tightly closed, it is the mind that be- 

 lieves that that which is, is best and, in re- 

 fusing to sanction any novelty, claims to be 

 exhibiting the agnostic attitude. This atti- 

 tude, ■when it is not actually assumed for 

 selfish motives, is an indication of preco- 

 cious mental senility, of mental inflexibility 

 or calcification. Its presence is always ob- 

 structive; its appearance is always ugly. 

 It may lead a thoughtful nature to such 

 outbreaks of exasperation as we find in the 

 play of Faust : 



By that I know the learned lord you are! 

 What you don't touch, is lying leagues afar; 

 Whait you don 't grasp is wholely lost to you ; 

 What you don 't reckon think you can 't be true ; 

 What you don't weigh, it has no weight, alas! 

 What you don 't coin, you 're sure it will not pass.n 



It is a great misfortune that there is as 

 yet no adequate way for the common man 

 to distinguish the genuine agnostic attitude 

 from this counterfeit, for it is owing to the 

 discovery that such a counterfeit exists that 

 the universities have been viewed for years 

 with suspicion by many thoughtful mem- 

 bers of society, especially of the intelligent 

 working class. For in the case of the aca- 

 demician or scientific expert, what common 

 man can distinguish wise caution from dull 

 or self-seeking immobility ! 



But the old are unable to grasp a new 

 idea; are they then to be condemned to 

 euthanasia by chloroform at sixty years, as 

 has been playfully suggested? By no 



11 Goethe, ' ' Faust, ' ' Pt. II., Act I., Sc. II., Bay- 

 ard Taylor's translation. 



