208 Biological Controversy and its Laws . [April, 
reform be extended to biology and psychology ? Those who 
cannot treat these subjects from a purely scientific point of 
view may serve to test the patience of unfortunate reviewers, 
but they cannot lead us to the truth. 
Let us now return to the subject- matter of the controversy 
before us ; — In one passage we find it asserted that the 
Darwinian theories have met with wide-spread acceptance 
amongthe “ half-educated.’’ This is quite contrary to our own 
observation. The most numerous and most virulent oppo- 
nents of the doCtrine of Natural Selection, and indeed of 
Evolution altogether, are to be found among the following 
classes -Retail tradesmen, clerks, shopmen, commercial 
travellers, “smart” writers in the political press and in 
purely literary organs, Sunday-school teachers, ministers of 
the less intellectual dissenting communities, and clergymen 
who have not had the advantage of a university training. 
On the other hand, its popularity among working naturalists 
- — “ Maenner vom Fach ” — is great, and that in proportion 
as they are working naturalists, men accustomed to deal 
with things rather than with words or with dreams. 
Among the weapons employed against Darwinism a pro- 
minent place belongs to the admissions of its author and 
supporters. But these are almost invariably magnified and 
distorted, as is often the case, with isolated passages taken 
out of their connection. If an enquirer avows that his 
system needs modification, it by no means follows that he 
abandons it altogether, in any other sense than as we aban- 
don a tentative hypothesis in favour of a closer approxima- 
tion to the truth. Of the ingenious rather than ingenuous 
style in which the writings of Evolutionists in general, and 
of Darwinians in particular, are travestied, we cite the fol- 
lowing as a typical instance : — Mr. Darwin having remarked 
that if man had not been his own classifier the notion of 
founding a separate order for his own reception would never 
have arisen, the comment is added ; — “ That is to say, the 
irrational classifier would necessarily have excluded the un- 
known element of reason as a basis of classification ! ” 
Mr. Darwin never suggested the possibility of such a contra- 
diction as an “ irrational classifier,” but assumed animals to 
be surveyed by a hypothetical being higher than man, or at 
least totally distinct from him and free from his pre- 
possessions. This “ bull ” — more absurd, if less humorous, 
than those of Irish origin — is from “ Caliban ; the Missing 
Link,” a work written not by Caliban, but by a Mr. D. 
Watson. 
Of course the most satisfactory manner of refuting the 
