374 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



printed a long letter to Huxley, as President of the Royal 

 Society, chiefly on his biblical discussion with Mr. Gladstone, 

 in a postscript to which he writes as follows : — 



"I have thoroughly exposed that degraded blackleg, 

 Alfred Russel Wallace, as I would every one who publicly 

 identifies himself with such grossly false science, which he 

 had the audacity to claim to be true ! If this man's experi- 

 ment on the Bedford canal was founded on fact, then the 

 whole of the Scriptures are false, from the first verse to the 

 last. But your whole system is based upon falsehood and 

 fraud, and refusal of all discussion ; and such characters as 

 Wallace seem to be your only champions." And he has an 

 appendix on " Modern Education conducted on Wrong 

 Principles," in which we find such gems as this : — 



"When Mr. Mundella and Mr. Gladstone were schoolboys, 

 the educational professors were all newly indoctrinated with 

 the pretentious learning of the * Principia ' of Newton. The 

 Bible was not regarded as of any authority upon such 

 subjects, and a flood of writers were all extolling the immortal 

 genius of the * incomparable mathematician.* Newton and 

 his apple-tree were spoken of as the foundation of all true 

 philosophy. The plausibly sounding phrases ' Attraction * 

 and * Gravitation ' were in every pedagogue's mouth, and 

 the poor children were birched into repeating them every 

 hour of their lives." And so on for three closely printed 

 pages. 



About this time he printed one thousand copies of a two- 

 page leaflet, and sent them to almost every one in my 

 neighbourhood whose address he could obtain, including 

 most of the masters of Charterhouse School, and the resi- 

 dents as well as the tradesmen of Godalming. It was full 

 of — " scientific villainy and roguery," — " cheat, swindler, and 

 impostor." — " My specific charge against Mr. A. R. Wallace 

 is that he obtained possession of a cheque for ;£'i,ooo by 

 fraud and falsehood of a party who had no authority to 

 dispose of it." — " As Mr. Wallace seems wholly devoid of 

 any sense of honour of his own, I shall most readily submit 

 the whole matter to any two or more disinterested parties, 



