592 
French Reactionism in Science . 
[October, 
clash with the results obtained by any academician, and if he 
shows a due amount of deference, all may be well. But how 
is he to secure fair play if he has run counter to and refuted 
theories to which some academician stands committed ? It 
may, indeed, happen that in some branch of science the 
illustrious body in question may include two rival lumi- 
naries. In that case the outsider, if he has been overlooked 
by M. le Professeur A, will find in M. le Professeur B a 
most zealous champion, and by thus playing off the Monta- 
gues and the Capulets against each other he may obtain 
recognition. But it may happen that in some one depart- 
ment there is an autocrat, a man less noted for the brilliance 
of his discoveries than for the perseverance and energy with 
which he has fought for power and influence. How will the 
outsider fare in the French scientific world if he has over- 
turned the theories which this man has all his life striven to 
conserve ? This was precisely the fate of Darwin and of 
Evolutionism before the judgment-seat of French official 
science. They must be ostracised by those who, as far as 
biology is concerned, have striven, and successfully striven, 
to cramp up the intellect of France in the straightest doc- 
trines of Cuvierism, and to keep French youth from sharing 
in the onward intellectual movement of the rest of Europe 
and of America. That their brother immortals raised no ob- 
jection need not surprise us ; they merely aCted like the 
ancient Roman triumvirs in settling a proscription-list : — 
“ Allow me to condemn Darwin, and I will do as much on 
occasion to oblige you ! ” We understand, now, surely, the 
reactionary spirit which has been so often manifested by 
French science. It is but the natural working of centralised 
officialism. 
Germany presents a totally different picture. There no 
one learned society stands in especial connection with the 
State, and is enabled to dominate all others. Every univer- 
sity is an independent centre of intellectual aCtion. There 
is that fulness, that variety, which we always recognise in 
vigorous life. 
In England, Science, if not subsidised by Government, 
has been free from control, and herein has been its salvation. 
Will it retain this freedom, or will it fall into bondage to 
a centralising bureaucracy ? The danger with us is not, we 
must remember, from the Royal Society, but from a totally 
different body, which we fear aims at powers wider far than 
those possessed by the French Academy. 
