i88o.] 
Scientific or Naturae System. 
581 
and the vast quantity of dangerous literature relating 
thereto, which is sometimes almost forced into households by 
a special machinery, against their wills, kept alive in great 
part by the posthumous endowments of well-meaning 
and wealthy old ladies* * who are fed on the same literature, 
and whose minds have been so drugged by the process that 
their complete incapacity to appreciate the pure truths ot 
indelible impress). Not the least benefit conferred by the enormous power of 
knowledge acquired through the unfolding of the prmctple ° f ““ *.1 
be no doubt, the capacity it gives us to trace and nail error. The problem c 
the Evolution of Error will probably form a most instructive i one Tor the s ta - 
in connection with the general theory of Evolution. Perhaps the greatest 
service that could be rendered to the rising generation would be the | purely 
nassive one of abstaining from teaching them error, leaving them a little m.ore 
t P o theTr own ideas and fatural resources. It might be a cunous imaginative 
a priori problem to consider how far a generation would advance if all the 
books except those relating to demonstrated truths were burnt. It would not 
probably take them long to create a sufficient amount of fiction and speculative 
theories 7 to amuse themselves with, which it would certainly no occur to them 
to teach to the succeeding generation as truths (as unscrupulous barbarians in 
the pas? mffiht well be conceived to have done) . The probability of would-be 
origfnators °of seCts obtaining a hearing would be (to say the least) extremely 
remote under the high intellectual status existing. Universal truth alone would 
be permitted to reign. This purely imaginary case wou 
step taken towards cutting the link of error which binds mankind to the bar 
barous past, and which (when unsevered) transmits by inheritance the inter- 
minable series of fictions inevitably attendant on evolution from ^ lower 
state to a higher-fiCtions which we should no more have dreamed of 
inventing ourselves than we should think now of turning to primaeval cloth g. 
It seemf astonishing how little we distrust legacies bequeathed to us from a 
remote antiquity. We appear to forget that s * m J; bar ^ 
have been so particular about lying as we should be. One valuable feature of 
the doctrine of Evolution is the wholesome distrust it inspires J or 
remotely ancient, and the corresponding lively hope it affords for the fut . 
The doClrine breathes the very spirit of reform and liberalism. It is a comtno 
propensity of superficial people to have an intense reverse for the damn- 
ably good old times ” (as the late Charles Dickens called them). . _ 
* The system is worked (as is known) in this country by societies, receiving 
large funds out of the superfluous wealth characteristic of the nation-an evi- 
dently unhealthy system with the best intentions. For while scientific truth 
is mainly diffused by brain, these “ moral” truths (!) [Heaven save the markj 
seem to be mainly diffused by money. We might enlarge upon the evils of a 
sectarian system of Hebrew ethics which gives such an extraordinary promi- 
nence to alms-givine, setting it up indeed as the highest ideal of virtue (the 
practical carrying out of the text which makes the test of perfection the selling 
o f all oLTIoods and giving the proceeds to the poor) The origin of our 
abnormal Poor Law, which has no parallel in Europe for its evils, may be 
natura u v traced here. To inquire into the causes of the thriftlessness and im- 
pro £ so notorious in this country would be a burlesque in view 
of these faCts. The huge list of alms-giving societies is culminated (as if in 
irony) by one whose special funftion appears to be to organise the dis- 
organisation. The many excellences of the country are too notorious for it to 
fear its faults being pointed out ; indeed these appear all the more glaring by 
co„t as The national charader seems to be made up of some curious con- 
tra” to aid anomalies (naturally due, no doubt, to evolution in t an r insular 
position), and which may form a most fertile and interesting field for study. 
