]44 PHILOSOPHY AND “EVOLUTION”: AN INQUIRY. 
in this room, he enunciated the same opinion. Being diffident of my 
own Hebrew, I consulted a reliable Hebraist, who had no hesitation 
in declaring that Mr. Woods Smyth was mistaken. The criticisms 
of Dr. Irving embrace the great and the minute, Asa Gray and the 
atom. He wishes that my paper had quoted the former, and 
discussed the latter. Then it would have been still more up to date. 
I cannot agree with him. Had the subject before the Society been 
“ Science and Evolution,” a quotation from Asa Gray would have 
been appropriate enough, and have deservedly carried weight ; but I 
am not aware that the eminent scientist has any claim to be regarded 
as an authority in philosophy. And where are quotations to end ? 
Is there to be no limit 1 Most readers will be of opinion that the 
list given in the paper is sufficiently long, and that, when they are 
brought up to within a few months of this present day, the paper is 
well up to date. As to the constitution of the atom, there was not 
time to discuss it ; nor would the discussion have been very relevant, 
if there had been time. Dr. Irving can hardly be ignorant that 
scientists are by no means unanimous on this matter. Personally, I 
hold with Clerk-Maxwell ; but even if matter were electricity, this 
would not affect my argument. I am thoroughly in agreement with 
Dr. Irving that “ the ‘ accepted conclusions ’ of mere critics and 
scholars (based to a large extent on negative evidence) can have to 
the scientific mind nothing of the nature of finality, and that deductions 
drawn from them can have no surer value than the nebulous data 
upon which they too often rest.”* 
To any one here who may with little consideration have adopted 
some theory of Evolution, may I commend Bacon’s wise counsel — 
“The Lord St. Alban would say to some philosophers, ‘Gentlemen, 
nature is a labyrinth, in which the very haste you move with, will 
make you lose your way.’ ” 
* Dr. Irving, Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. xxxix, p. 216. 
