The Attempt to Eliminate Mind 145 
thought and the weapon it afforded for expelling mind from 
the causes of evolution.” 
_ The Duke, speaking of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s two articles 
in the Nineteenth Century for April and May, 1886, to which 
I have already called attention, continues :— 
“In these two articles we have for the first time an 
avowed and definite declaration against some of the leading 
ideas on which the mechanical philosophy depends ; and 
yet the caution, and almost timidity, with which a man so 
eminent approaches the announcement of conclusions of 
the most self-evident truth is a most curious proof of the 
reign of terror which has come to be established.” 
Against this I must protest ; the Duke cannot seriously 
maintain that the main scope and purpose of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer’s articles is new. Their substance has been before 
us in Mr. Spencer’s own writings for some two-and-twenty 
years, in the course of which Mr. Spencer has been followed 
by Professor Mivart, the Rev. J. J. Murphy, the Duke of 
Argyll himself, and many other writers of less note. When 
the Duke talks about the establishment of a scientific 
reign of terror, I confess I regard such an exaggeration with 
something like impatience. Any one who has known his 
own mind and has had the courage of his opinions has been 
able to say whatever he wanted to say with as little let or 
hindrance during the last twenty years, as during any other 
period in the history of literature. Of course, if a man will 
keep blurting out unpopular truths without considering 
whose toes he may-or may not be treading on, he will make 
enemies some of whom will doubtless be able to give effect 
to their displeasure ; but that is part of the game. It is 
hardly possible for any one to oppose the fallacy involved 
in the Charles-Darwinian theory of natural selection more 
persistently and unsparingly than I have done myself from 
the year 1877 onwards ; naturally I have at times been very 
angrily attacked in consequence, and as a matter of business 
have made myself as unpleasant as I could in my rejoinders, 
K 
