Critiques and Addresses. Thomas Henry Huxley
to my "intolerance." Let us have full-toleration, by all means, upon all questions in which there is room for doubt, or which cannot be distinctly proved to affect the welfare of mankind. But when Miss Taylor has shown what basis exists for criminal legislation, except the clear right of mankind not to tolerate that which is demonstrably contrary to the welfare of society, I will admit that such demonstration ought only to be believed in by the "curates and old women" to whom she refers. Recent events have not weakened the conviction I expressed in a much-abused speech at the London School Board, that Ultramontanism is demonstrably the enemy of society; and must be met with resistance, merely passive if possible, but active if necessary, by "the whole power of the State."
Next in order, it seems proper that I should briefly refer to my friend Mr. Mivart's onslaught upon my criticism of Mr. Darwin's critics, himself among the number, which will be found in this volume. In "Evolution and its Consequences"[1] I am accused of misrepresentation, misquotation, misunderstanding, and numerous other negative and positive literary and scientific sins; and much subtle ingenuity is expended by Mr. Mivart in attempting to extricate himself from the position in which my exposition of the real opinions of Father Suarez has placed him. So much more, in fact, has Mr. Mivart's ingenuity impressed me than any other feature of his reply, that I shall take the liberty of re-stating the main issue between us; and, for the present, leaving that issue alone to the judgment of the public.
[Footnote 1: Contemporary Review, January 1872.]
In his book on the "Genesis of Species" Mr. Mivart, after discussing the opinions of sundry Catholic writers of authority, among whom he especially includes St. Augustin, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Jesuit Suarez, proceeds to say: "It is then evident that ancient and most venerable theological authorities distinctly assert derivative creation, and thus their teachings harmonize with all that modern science can possibly require."[1] By the "derivative creation" of organic forms, Mr. Mivart understands, "that God created them by conferring on the material world the power to evolve them under suitable conditions."
[Footnote 1: Bunsen's "Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal
History," vol. i.p. 349. 1854.]
On the contrary, I proved by evidence, which Mr. Mivart does not venture to impugn, that Suarez, in his "Tractatus de Opere sex Dierum," expressly rejects St. Augustin's and St. Thomas' views; that he vehemently advocates the literal interpretation of the account of the creation given in the Book of Genesis; and that he treats with utter scorn the notion that the Almighty could have used the language of that Book, unless He meant it to be taken literally.
Mr. Mivart, therefore, either has read Suarez and has totally misrepresented him—a hypothesis which, I hope I need hardly say, I do not for a moment entertain: or, he has got his information at second hand, and has himself been deceived. But in that case, it is surely an imprudence on his part, to reproach me with having "read Suarez ad hoc, and evidently without the guidance of anyone familiar with that author." No doubt, in the matter of guidance, Mr. Mivart has the advantage of me. Nevertheless, the guides who supplied him with his references to Suarez' "Metaphysica," while they left him in ignorance of the existence of the "Tractatus," are guides with whose services it might be better to dispense; leaders who wilfully shut their eyes, being even more liable to lodge one in a ditch, than blind leaders.
At the time when the essay on "Methods and Results of Ethnology" was written, I had not met with a passage in Professor Max Müller's "Last Results of Turanian Researches"[1] which shows so appositely, that the profoundest study of philology leads to conclusions respecting the relation of Ethnology with Philology, similar to those at which I had arrived in approaching the question from the Anatomist's side, that I cannot refrain from quoting it:
[Footnote 1: LONDON, April 1873.]
"Nor should we, in our phonological studies, either expect or desire more than general hints from physical ethnology. The proper and rational connection between the two sciences is that of mutual advice and suggestion, but nothing more. Much of the confusion of terms and indistinctness of principles, both in Ethnology and Phonology, are due to the combined study of these heterogeneous sciences. Ethnological race and phonological race are not commensurate, except in ante-historical times, or perhaps at the very dawn of history. With the migration of tribes, their wars, their colonies, their conquests and alliances, which, if we may judge from their effects, must have been much more violent in the ethnic, than even in the political, period of history, it is impossible to imagine that race and language should continue to run parallel. The physiologist should pursue his own science unconcerned about language."
It is further desirable to remark that the statements in this Essay respecting the forms of Native American crania need rectification. On this point, I refer the reader who is interested in the subject to my paper "On the Form of the Cranium among the Patagonians and the Fuegians" published in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology for 1868.
If the problem discussed in my address to the British Association in 1870 has not yet received its solution, it is not because the champions of Abiogenesis have been idle, or wanting in confidence. But every new assertion on their side has been met by a counter assertion; and though the public may have been led to believe that so much noise must indicate rapid progress, one way or the other, an impartial critic will admit, with sorrow, that the question has been "marking time" rather than marching. In mere sound, these two processes are not so very different.
I.
ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. (An Address delivered to the Members of the Midland Institute, on the 9th of October, 1871, and subsequently published in the Fortnightly Review)
II.
THE SCHOOL BOARDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND WHAT THEY MAY DO. (The Contemporary Review, 1870)
III.
ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. (An Address to the Students of the Faculty of
Medicine in University College, London, 1870)
IV.
YEAST. (The Contemporary Review, 1871)
V.
ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. (A Lecture delivered before the Members of the Bradford Philosophical Institution, and subsequently published in the Contemporary Review)
VI.
ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. (Good Words, 1870)
VII.
ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. (The Fortnightly Review, 1865)
VIII.
ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. (The Contemporary Review, 1871)
IX.
PALAEONTOLOGY AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. (The Presidential Address to the Geological Society, 1870)
X.
MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. (The Contemporary Review, 1871)
XI.
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS. (A Review of Haeckel's "Natürliche
Schöpfungs-Geschichte." The Academy, 1869)
XII.
BISHOP BERKELEY ON THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION. (Macmillan's Magazine, 1871)
CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES.