1876.] Biological Controversy and its Laws. 203 
moral or religious bearings, or by their agreement with the 
author’s a priori views. If we bring fadts to prove the 
existence of reason in animals, we are told that we do not 
know what reason is ; if we find in them evidences of moral 
life, it is said that we have “ not even the faintest conception 
of what a moral nature is.” If we show that they possess lan- 
guage, there follows the ready quirk that we confound emotional 
language with intellectual. That Mr. Mivart’s own views 
of moral nature and of reason must be correct, no one, of 
course, is supposed to doubt ; nor is the spirit of the argu- 
ment sounder than its method. The author speaks, not as 
a judge calmly weighing the arguments on either side, and 
anxious merely that the truth should be ascertained, but 
as a passionate and eager prosecuting counsel, or rather as 
a procureur du roi, skilfully bringing forward every circum- 
stance, every point — adtual or inferred, relevant or irrelevant 
— which may in any wise damage the defendants, and with 
equal dexterity concealing whatsoever might tell in their 
favour. Deep personal hatred towards the “ Agnostics ” 
and their dodtrines — the odium theologicum in its most ma- 
lignant form — pervades the entire book. Mr. Mivart may 
doubtless be able to meet Mr. Darwin, Mr. Lewes, Mr. Spen- 
cer, or Dr. Huxley, on neutral ground or in private life, on 
terms of ordinary courtesy ; but it is because the man 
is better and greater than his book. We find here nothing 
of that fine manly spirit expressed in the old adage — 1 i( Plato 
is my friend, but truth is more my friend.” On the contrary, 
there is one passage in which Mr. Mivart almost seems to 
apologise for having, on some former occasion, spoken of 
Mr. Darwin with too much courtesy. For this he has now 
atoned to an extent almost ludicrous. We should not have 
felt in the least surprised had we found it proved — of course 
by stridtly metaphysical arguments — that the author of the 
“ Origin of Species ” is the veritable transgressor who— 
“ Filled the butchers’ shops with large blue flies, 
or who— 
“With foul earthquakes ravaged the Caraccas, 
And raised the price of sugars and tobaccos.” 
Suppose, in all sober sadness, an enquirer knowing nothing 
more of Darwin than what he might learn out of “ Lessons 
from Nature.” Would he not go away with the impression 
that our great English naturalist had done little beyond 
launching a “ puerile hypothesis,” and had played a very 
unimportant — and, if anything, rather injurious — part in the 
development of biological science ? Yet every candid critic 
