FOOTNOTES:

In accordance with the wise provisions of the EncyclicalProvidentissimus Deus, with which all educated Catholics should make themselves familiar, conflicts have been avoided on this, and on other points, such as the general theory of evolution and the various problems connectedwith it; the antiquity of man upon the earth and other matters as to which science is still uncertain. Some of these points might seem to conflict with the Bible and the teachings of the Church. As Catholics we can rest assured that the true explanation, whenever it emerges, cannot be opposed to the considered teaching of the Church. What the Church does—and surely it must be clear that from her standpoint she could not do less—is to instruct Catholic men of science not to proclaimas proved factssuch modern theories—and there are many of them—as still remain wholly unproved, when these theories are such as might seem to conflict with the teaching of the Church. This is very far from saying that Catholics are forbidden to study such theories.

On the contrary, they are encouraged to do so, and that, need it be said, with the one idea of ascertaining the truth? Men of science, Catholic and otherwise, have, as a mere matter of fact, been time and again encouraged by Popes and other ecclesiastical authorities to go on searching for the truth, never, however, neglecting the wise maxim that all things must be proved. So long as a theory is unproved, it must be candidly admitted that it is a crime against science to proclaim it to be incontrovertible truth, yet this crime is being committed every day. It is really against it that themagisteriumof the Church is exercised. The wholesome discipline which she exercises might also be exercised to the great benefit of the ordinary reading public by somecentral scientific authority, can such be imagined, endowed with the right to say (and in any way likely to be listened to): "Such and such a statement is interesting—even extremely interesting—but so far one must admit that no sufficient proof is forthcoming to establish it as a fact: it ought not, therefore, to be spoken of as other than a theory, nor proclaimed as fact."

Such constraint when rightly regarded is not or would not be a shackling of the human intellect, but a kindly and intelligent guidance of those unable to form a proper conclusion themselves. Such is the idea of the Church in the matter with which we have been dealing.

[23]Darwiniana, p. 147.

[24]See, for example, hisLife and Letters, i., 307.

[25]Hume,English Men of Letters Series, p. 135.

[26]Of course, it may be argued, no Fellow need have applied for animprimatur; he did itex majori cantelâas the lawyers say. This may be so, but the same applies to the ecclesiasticalimprimatur.

[27]The review from which the following quotations are made appeared inNatureon January 24, 1889.

[28]Vol. ii., p. 113.

[29]Galileo and His Condemnation, Catholic Truth Society of England.

Amongst various important matters now brought to a sharper focus in the public eye, few, if any, require more careful attention than that which is concerned with science, its value, its position, its teachings, and how it should be taught. No one who has followed the domestic difficulties due to our neglect of the warnings of scientific men can fail to see how we have had to suffer because of the lax conduct of those responsible for these things in the past.

Within the first few weeks after the war broke out—to take one example—every medical man was the recipient of a document telling him of the expected shortage in a number of important drugs and suggesting the substitutes which he might employ. It was a timely warning; but it need never have been issued if we had not allowed the manufacture of drugs, and especially those of the so-called "synthetic" group, to drift almost entirely into the hands of the Badische Aniline Fabrik, and kindred firms in Germany. This difficulty, now partly overcome, is one which never would have arisen but for the deaf ear turned to the warnings of the scientific chemists.British pharmaceutical chemists, with one or two exceptions, had been relying upon foreign sources not only for synthetic drugs but actually for the raw materials of many of their preparations—such, for example, as aconite, belladonna, henbane, all of which can be freely grown—which even grow wild—in these islands; even, incredible as it may seem, for foxglove leaves. These things with many others were imported from Germany and Austria. Here again leeway has had to be made up; but it ought never to have been necessary, and now that the war is over steps should be taken to see that it never need be necessary again. The encouragement of British herb-gardens and of scientific experiment therein on the best method of culture for the raw material of our organic medicines must certainly be matters early taken in hand.

The classical example of the mortal injury done to British manufacture by the British manufacturer's former contempt for the scientific man is that of the aniline dyes, which are so closely associated with the synthetic drugs as to form one subject of discussion. Quite early in the war dye-stuffs ran short, and there was no means of replenishing the stock in Britain, nor even in America, these products having formed the staple of a colossal manufacture, with an enormous financial turnover, in Germany.

Let us look at the history of these dyes. The first aniline dye was discovered quite by accident, in 1856, by the late Professor W. H. Perkin. He called it "mauve," from the French word for themallow, the colour of whose flower it somewhat resembled. In 1862 there was an International Exhibition in London; and those who remembered it and its predecessor of 1851 have declared that the case of aniline dye-stuffs—for by that time quite a number of new pigments had been discovered—excited at the later the same attention as that given to the Koh-i-noor at the earlier. The invention, out of which grew the enormous German business already alluded to, and with which has been associated the discovery and manufacture of the synthetic drugs, was entirely British in its inception and in its early stages. Moreover the raw materials on which it depended, namely, gas-tar products, were to be had in greater abundance in England than anywhere else. Yet, at the time when the war broke out, this industry had been allowed almost entirely to drift into German hands.

How was this? Let an expert reply. It was due, he tells us, to the neglect of "the repeated warnings which have been issued since that time" (viz.1880, by which date the Germans had succeeded in capturing the trade in question) "in no uncertain voice by Meldola, Green, the Perkins (father and son), and many other English chemists." Further, he continues, two causes have invariably been indicated for the transfer of this industry to Germany—"first the neglect of organic chemistry in the Universities and colleges of this country" (a neglect which has long ceased), "and then the disregard by manufacturers of scientific methods and assistance and total indifference to the practice of research in connection with their processes and products." I remember talking some twenty-five years ago to a highly educated young student of Birmingham who was of German parentage though of English birth. He had just taken the degree of Doctor of Science in London University, and was on the eve of abandoning the adopted country of his parents for a position in the research laboratories of the Badische company, where he would be one among a number of chemists, running into hundreds, all engaged in research on gas-tar products. At that moment the great Birmingham gas-company was employing the services of one trained chemist.

Such was and is the neglect of science by business men. Could it have been otherwise, considering their bringing up? Let me again be reminiscent. I suppose the public school in England (not a Catholic school, for I was then a Protestant) at which I pursued what were described as studies did not in any very marked degree differ from its sister schools throughout the country. How was science encouraged there? One hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time devoted weekly, not to Greek and Latin (that would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the writing of Greek and Latin prose and alleged Greek and Latin verse—that was the amount of time which was devoted to what was called science. I suppose I had an ingrained vocation for science, for it was the only subject, except English composition, in which I ever felt interest at school. If the vocation had not been there,any interest in the subject must necessarily have been slain once for all in me, as I am sure it was in scores of others, by the way it was taught; for the instruction was confided to the ordinary form-master, who doled out his questions from a text-book perfunctorily used and probably heartily despised by a man brought up on strict classical or mathematical lines. Our manufacturer is brought up in a school of this kind, and it would be a miracle if he emerged from it with any respect for science. Things have changed now, and for the better, as they have at most of the Universities; but we are dealing with the generation of manufacturers of my age who were largely responsible for the neglects now in question. Well, the boy left his school and went to Oxford or Cambridge, neither of which then greatly encouraged science. Its followers were, I believe, known as "Stinks Men." At any rate it is only comparatively recently that we have seen the splendid developments of to-day in those ancient institutions. One relic of the ancient days gives us an illuminating idea of how things used to be, just as a fossil shows us the environment of its day.[30]Trinity College, Dublin, has fine provision for scientific teaching, and a highly competent staff to teach. But in its constitution it shows the attitude towards science which till lately informed the older Universities.

Trinity College has in its Fellowship system one of the most important series of pecuniary rewards perhaps in Europe, of an educational character. A man has only once to pass an examination, admittedly one of great severity and competitive in character, and thenceforward to go on living respectably and doing such duties as are committed to him, to be ensured an excellent and increasing income for life. How great the rewards are will be gathered from the fact that a distinguished occupant of one of these positions some years ago endeavoured—with complete success—to enforce on me the importance of the Fellowship examination by telling me that he had already received over £50,000 in emoluments as a result of his success. He has received a good deal more since, and I hope will continue to be the recipient of this shower of gold for many years to come.[31]No doubt much might be urged for this system, which was for a long time popular in China for the selection of Mandarins, and I am not criticising it here. What I want to emphasise is that the examination for these valuable positions is either classical or mathematical, and there it ends. The greatest biologist in the world would have as much chance of a Fellowship as the ragged urchin in the street unless he could "settle Hoti's business" or elucidate [Greek: P] or do other things of that kind. It is a luminous example of what was—must we sayis?—thought of science in certain academic circles. Of course it may be urged—I have actually heard it urged—that nothing is science save that which is treatable by mathematical methods. It was a kind of inverted M. Jourdain who used this argument, a gentleman who imagined himself to have been teaching science during a long life without ever having effected what he supposed to be his object. Then, again, our manufacturer, whose object in life is to make money, is naturally, perhaps even necessarily, affected by the kind of salaries which highly trained and highly eminent men of science receive by way of reward for their work. Few, if any, receive anything like the emoluments attaching to the position of County Court Judge, and I know of only one case in which a Professor's income, to the delight and envy of all the teaching profession, actually, for a few years, soared somewhat near the empyrean of a Puisne Judge's reward.

Perhaps this is not to be wondered at; for Parliament always contains many lawyers, and at the moment, I think, not a single scientific expert, at least among the Commons. This is not really a sordid argument, though it may appear so. The labourer, after all, is worthy of his hire; but in the scientific world it very, very seldom happens that the hire is worthy of the labourer. Even to this day there is plenty of truth in the description of the attitude of Mr. Meagles towards Mr. Doyce as detailed by the author ofLittle Dorrit. Perhaps that is partly because it is generally theman of business, and not the unhappy man of science, who gains the money produced by scientific discoveries. These are often, if not usually, made by accident, and by a man on the track of something else, on the elucidation of which he is probably so intent that he cannot spare time for side-issues, very likely never even thinks of them. Sir James Dewar discovered the principle of the "Thermos flask" whilst he was working at the exceedingly difficult subject of the liquefaction of air. I hope Sir James had the prescience to patent his discovery, and reap the reward which was due to him; but, if he did, he is one amongst a thousand who never took this trouble and of whomSic vos non vobismight well be said. When Sabatier had shown the importance of combinations of hydrogen effected by what is known as a catalyst, numerous patents were taken out—by other people, of course—on which were founded very flourishing businesses. Sabatier profited by none of these—so I understand. He received a Nobel prize for his discoveries; but another hath his heritage.

Though science has not received any great encouragement, yet in spite of that—the cynic might say because of that—it has made amazing progress during the past half-century. Mr. Chesterton somewhere notes that "a time may easily come when we shall see the great outburst of science in the Nineteenth Century as something quite as splendid, brief, unique, and ultimately abandoned as the outburst of art at the Renaissance." That, of course, may be so, but as tothe outburst there can be no question, nor of its persistence to the present day. That also is surely a curious phenomenon; for, as regards most other things, we seem to be in the trough of the wave, and not merely in these islands but all over the civilised world. In Art, in Music, in Literature, in the Drama, it would be difficult to argue in favour of a pre-eminence, or even of an equality of the present age, comparing it with its predecessors.

Take the politicians of the world; it is perhaps difficult, even foolish, for us who are living with them to prophesy with any approximation of accuracy what the historian of a future day may say about them. He may sum them up as respectable, honest mediocrities trying to do their best under exceptionally difficult circumstances; he may put them lower; he may put them higher; he may differentiate between those of different nations; but there is little doubt that, with the exception of the American President, he will not be able to point to any one of the calibre of Pitt or of Bismarck or of the less severely tried Disraeli or Gladstone.

But just the reverse is the case in science, which has men of the very first rank living, working, and discovering to-day. There are indeed signs that even our Government is cognizant of this. The creation of a Department of Industrial Scientific Research, the provision of a substantial income for the same, the increase of research-grants to learned societies, these and other things show that some attempt will be made to recognise thevalue of science to the State. Further, the lesson seems to have gone home to some few at least that there is no difference between what have been absurdly called Pure and Applied Science, since so very many "Applied" discoveries—such as the "Thermos"—arose in the course of what certainly would have been described as "Pure" researches.

It is to the public advantage that every educated person should know something about science; nor is this by any means as big or difficult an achievement as some may imagine. It is not necessary to teach any very large number of persons very much about any particular science or group of sciences. What is really important is that people should imbibe some knowledge of scientific methods—of the meaning of science. This can be done from the study of quite a few fundamental propositions of any one science under a good teacher—a first essential. Any person thus educated will, for the remainder of his life, be able at least to understand what is meant by science and the scientific method of approaching a problem. He will not, like an educational troglodyte at a recent Conference, refuse to describe anything as science which is not capable of mathematical treatment, nor allude compendiously to physiological study as "the cutting up of frogs." In a word, he will be an educated man, which can no more be said of one ignorant of science than it can be of one whose mind has never experienced the softening influence of letters.

So far, everybody whose opinion counts seems to be agreed; but in any plea for an extended and improved teaching of science, certain points ought not to be left out of count. In the first place, science is not the key to all locks; there are many important things—some of the most important things in life—with which it has nothing whatever to do. It will be well to recall Mr. Balfour's words at the opening of the National Physical Laboratory: "Science depends on measurement, and things not measurable are therefore excluded, or tend to be excluded, from its attention. But Life and Beauty and Happiness are not measurable. If there could be a unit of happiness, politics might begin to be scientific." It follows that there are a number of subjects on which the scientific man is just as fit, or as unfit, to express an opinion as any other man. The intense preoccupation which serious scientific studies demand, may render the man who is engaged therein even less competent to express an opinion on alien subjects than one whose attention, less concentrated, has time to range over diverse fields of study. Readers of Darwin'sLifewill remember his confession that he had lost all taste for music, art, and literature; that he "could not endure to read a line of poetry" and found Shakespeare "so intolerably dull that it nauseated" him; and finally, that his mind seemed "to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of a large collection of facts."

Despite this warning as to the limits of science,we have no lack of instances of scientific men posing as authorities on subjects on which they had no real right to be heard, and, what is worse, being accepted as such by the uninstructed crowd. Thus Professor Huxley, who, as some one once said, "made science respectable," was wont to utter pontifical pronouncements on the subject of Home Rule for Ireland. His knowledge of that country was quite rudimentary, and his visits to it had been as few and as brief as if he had been its Sovereign; but that did not prevent him from delivering judgment, nor unfortunately deter many from following that judgment as if it had been inspired. I am not now arguing as to the rights and wrongs of Huxley's view on the matter in question: I have my own opinion on that. What I am urging is that his position, whether as a zoologist or, incidentally, as a great master of the English language, in no way entitled him to express an opinion or rendered him a better authority on such a question than any casual fellow-traveller in a railway carriage might easily be.

This is bad enough; but what is far worse is when scientific experts on the strength of their study of Nature assume the right of uttering judicial pronouncements on moral and sociological questions, judgments some at least of which are subversive of both decency and liberty. Thus we have lately been told that it is "wanton cruelty" to keep a weak or sickly child alive; and the medical man, under a reformed system of medical ethics, is to have leave and licence toput an end to its life in a painless manner. To what enormities and dastardly agreements this might lead need hardly be suggested; and I am quite confident that the members of the honourable profession of physic, to which I am proud to belong, have no desire whatever for such a reform of the law or of their ethics. Then we are told in the same address (Bateson,British Association Addresses in Australia, 1914) that on the whole a decline in the birth-rate is rather a good thing, and that families averaging four children are quite enough to keep the world going comfortably. The date of this address will be noted; and the fact that the war, which was then just beginning, has probably caused its author and has caused everybody else to see the utter futility of such assertions.

However, if we are to rear only four children per marriage, and if we are to give the medical man liberty to weed out the weaklings, it behoves us to see that the children whom we produce are of the best quality. Let us, therefore, hie to the stud-farm, observe its methods and proceed to apply them to the human race. We must definitely prevent feeble-minded persons from propagating their species. Within limits, that is a proposition with which all instructed persons would agree, though few, we imagine, would put their opinions so uncharitably as the lecturer did: "The union of such social vermin we should no more permit than we would allow parasites to breed on our own bodies." But we must go farther than this, and introduce all sorts ofrestrictions on matrimony, until finally it comes to be a matter to be arranged under rigid laws by a jury of elderly persons—all, we may feel perfectly sure, "cranks" of the first water.

In whatmilieuare their findings to take effect? It is very important to consider that. The author from whom I have been quoting tells us what we want to know. Man, he tells us, is "a rather long-lived animal, with great powers of enjoyment, if he does not deliberately forgo them." In the past, we are told, "superstitious and mythical ideas of sin have predominantly controlled these powers." We have changed all that now; as the parent inPunchsays to the crying child by the seashore, "You've come out to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself you shall!" So we are to plunge into the whirlpool of eugenic delights without any fear of that "bugbear of a hell" which another writer congratulates us on getting rid of. We can, it appears, enter upon our eugenic experiment without a single moral scruple to restrain us or a single religious restriction to interfere with us. In this soil is the plant to be grown, and the first weed to be eradicated is that of the right of personal choice of a partner for life, or for such other term as the law under the newrégimemay require. Jack is to be torn from weeping Jill, and handed over to reluctant Joan, to whom he is personally displeasing and for whom he has not the slightest desire, and handed over because the Breeding Committee think it is likely to prove advantageous for the Coming Race. All that may be possible—or may not—but what then? When you are carrying out Mendelian experiments on peas, you can enclose your flowers in muslin bags and prevent anything interfering with your observations. And in the stud-farm you can keep the occupants shut up.

But what are you going to do with Jack? and with Jill? And still more with Joan? They cannot be permanently isolated, neither are they restrained by any "mythical ideas of sin." They have been educated to the idea that their highest duty is to enjoy themselves. Why should they not do what they like? And consequently, as any reasoning person can see, "The Inevitable" must happen; and where is your experiment and where the Coming Race? It is perfectly useless for doctrinaires to argue, as doctrinaires will, about ethical restraints. Nature hasnoethical restraints; and any ethical restraints which man has come from that higher nature of his which he does not share with the lower creation. What those whom the late Mr. Devas so aptly called "after-Christians" always forget is that the humane, the Christian side of life, which they as well as others exhibit, is due to the influence, lingering if you like, of Christianity. They ignore or forget the pit out of which they were digged.

By another Eugenist we are told that willy-nilly every sound, healthy person of either sex must get married or at least betake him or herself to the business of propagating the race. That at least is the essence of his singularly offensive dictum that since the celibacy of the Catholic clergy and of members of ReligiousOrders deprives the State of a number of presumably excellent parents, "if monastic orders and institutions are to continue, they should be open only to the eugenically unfit."[32]If the religious call is not to be permitted to dispense a man or woman from entering the estate of matrimony, it may be assumed that nothing else, except an unfavourable report from the committee of selection, will do so. And, further, as the one object of all this is to bring super-children into the world, we must also assume that those who fail in this duty will find themselves in peril of the law.

Surely what has been set down shows that whatever scientific reputation the writers in question possess, and it is undeniably great, it has not equipped them, one will not merely say with moral or religious ideas, but with an ordinary knowledge of human nature. It has not equipped them with any conception apparently of political possibilities; and it has left them without any of that saving salt, a sense of humour. Like Huxley, they have started out to give opinions without first having made themselves familiar with the subject on which they were to deliver judgment.

It is perhaps little to be wondered at that the intense preoccupation which the study of science entails should tend to induce those whose attention is constantly fixed on Nature to imagine that from Nature can be drawn not only lessons ofphysical life but lessons also of conduct. Of course this is quite wrong; for Nature has no moral lesson to teach us. We are told to go to the ant—at least the sluggard is—but for what? To amend his sluggardliness. No one has ever suggested that we should go to Nature to learn to be humble, kindly, unselfish, tolerant, and Christian, in our dealings with others; and for this excellent reason, that none of these things can be learnt from Nature. Science is neither moral nor immoral, but non-moral; and, as we have seen a thousand times in this present war, its kindest gifts to man can be used, and are used, for his cruel destruction. In this war, pre-eminently amongst all wars, we have the application of pure natural principles unameliorated by the influences of Christianity, or of chivalry, Christianity's offspring. As Sir Robert Borden has summed it up, German kultur is an attempt "to impose upon us the law of the jungle."

Natural Selection, some would have us believe, is the dominant law of living nature, and all would agree that it is an important law. Let us then, if we are to follow Nature, put it into practice. But Natural Selection means the Survival of the Fittest in the Struggle for Life. It consequently means the Extermination of the Less Fit, a little fact often left out of count. It means in three words "Might is Right," and was not that exactly the proposition by which we were confronted in this war? If Natural Selection be our only guide, let us sink hospitalships, destroy innocent villages and towns, exterminate our weaker opponents in any way that seems best to us. It was all summed up centuries ago by the author of the Book of Wisdom: "Let us oppress the poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey hairs of the aged. But let your strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth." That is Natural Selection in operation in human life when human beings have been stripped of all "mythical ideas of Sin:" not a pretty picture nor a condition of affairs under which we should like long to exist. Some of the other resemblances are less dreadful, but none the less instructive. Let us take the matter of Mimicry. There is a form of protective mimicry whereby the living thing is like unto its surroundings, and thus escapes its enemy. We find it in warfare in the use of khaki dress, in white overalls in snow-time, in other such expedients. But there is also a form of Aggressive Mimicry in which a deadly thing makes itself look like something innocent, as the wolf tried to look in "Little Red Riding Hood." "The Germans were beginning their attack on Haumont. Their front-line skirmishers, to throw us into confusion, had donned caps which were a faint imitation of our own, and also provided themselves with Red Cross brassards" (The Battle of Verdun.H. Dugard). Not to be tedious on this point, which really does not require to be laboured, let me finish with one quotation from a vivid series of war-pictures. Boyd Cable is writing of menin the trenches: "Civilised Man, in his latest art of war, has gone back to be taught one more simple lesson by the beast of the field and the birds of the air; the armed hosts are hushed and stilled by the passing air-machine, exactly as the finches and field-mice of hedgerow and ditch and field are frozen to stillness by the shadow of a hovering hawk, the beat of its passing wing."

No; an existence passed under conditions of this kind and as the normal state of affairs is not an existence to be contemplated with equanimity. We are anxious that science and scientific teaching should be assisted in every possible way. But let us be quite clear that while science has much to teach us and we much to learn from her, there are things as to which she has no message to the world. The Minor Prophets of science are never tired of advising theologians to keep their hands off science. The Major Prophets are too busy to occupy themselves with such polemics. But the theologian is abundantly in his right in saying to the scientific writer "Hands off morals!" for with morality science has nothing to do. Let us at any rate avoid that form of kultur which consists in bending Natural History to the teaching of conduct, uncorrected by any Christian injunctions to soften its barbarities.

[30]Since these lines were written, this state of affairs has come to an end and the first Fellow has been elected for his purely scientific attainments, in the person of the distinguished geologist, Professor Joly, F.R.S.

[31]It was the late distinguished Provost, Sir John Mahaffy, at whose instance the change in the Fellowship system was introduced.

[32]Conklyn,Heredity and Environment in the Development of Men. Princeton University Press, 1915.

Some years ago, when I was delivering a lecture at the Cathedral Hall of Westminster, in the course of the questioning which took place at the termination of the discourse, which was on vitalism, I was asked by one who signed his paper, "So and So, Atheist," "What would you say if you saw a duck come out of a hen's egg?" I recognised at once the idea at the back of the question and appreciated the fact that it had been asked by one who, as some one has said, "called himself an advanced free-thinker, but was really a very ignorant and vulgar person who was suffering from a surfeit of the ideas of certain people cleverer than himself." But, as a full discussion of the matter would have taken at least as long as the lecture which I had just concluded, my reply was that before I attempted to explain it I would wait to see the duck come out of the hen's egg, since no man had as yet witnessed such an event. I do not know whether my atheistical questioner was satisfied or not, but I heard no more of him. But, after all, is it not a marvellous thing that a duck never does come out of a hen's egg? If everything happens by chance, as some wouldhave us believe, why is it that a duck does not occasionally emerge from a hen's egg? Surely this is amiraculum, a thing to be wondered at, yet so common that it goes unnoticed, like many other wonderful things which are also matters of common everyday occurrence, such as the spinning of the earth on its own axis and its course round the sun and through the heavens.

If we pursue this question further we shall begin to remember that creatures more nearly related to one another also "breed true." The hen and the duck are both birds, but they are not so nearly allied to one another as the lion and the tiger, both of which areFelidæ, or cats. Yet no one ever expects that a tiger will be born of a lioness, orvice versa. Further, the pug and the greyhound are both of them dogs: the namecanis domesticusapplies to both, and one would be distinguished from the other in a scientific list as "Var. (i.e.variety) 'pug,'" or "Var. 'greyhound.'" Yet one can imagine the surprise of a breeder if a greyhound was born in his carefully selected and guarded kennel of pugs. In a word, not only species, but varieties do tend to breed true; the child does resemble its parent or parents. No doubt the resemblance is not absolute: there is variation as well as inheritance. Sometimes the variation may be recognised as a feature possessed by a grandparent or even by some collateral relative such as an uncle or great-uncle; sometimes this may not be the case, though the non-recognition of the likeness does not in any way preclude the possibility thatthe peculiarity may have been also possessed by some other member of the family. But on the whole the offspring does closely resemble its parents; that is to say, not only the species and the variety but the individual "breeds true." "Look like dey are bleedzed to take atter der pa," as Uncle Remus said when he was explaining how the rabbit comes to have a bobtail. Moreover this resemblance is not merely in the great general features. Apart from monstrosities, the children of human beings are human beings; the children of white parents have white skins, those of black progenitors are black. Commonly, though not always by any means, the children of dark-haired parents are themselves dark-haired, and so on. But smaller features are also transmitted, and transmitted too for many generations; for example, the well-known case of the Hapsburg lip, visible in so many portraits of Spanish monarchs and their near relatives, and visible in life to-day. Again, there are families in which the inner part of one eyebrow has the hairs growing upwards instead of in the ordinary way, a feature which is handed on from one generation to another. Even more minute features than this have been known to be transmissible and transmitted, such as a tiny pit in the skin on the ear or on the face. In fact, there is hardly any feature, no matter how small, which may not become a hereditary possession.

If in-and-in breeding occur, as it may do amongst human beings in a locality much removed from other places of habitation, it may evenhappen that what may be looked upon as a variety of the human race may arise, though when it arises it is always easy to wipe it out and restore things to the normal by the introduction of fresh blood, to use the misleading term commonly employed, where the Biblical word "seed" comes much nearer to the facts.

Thus there is a well-authenticated case in France (in Brittany if I remember right) of a six-fingered race which existed for a number of generations in a very isolated place and was restored to five-fingeredness when an increase in the populousness of the district permitted a wider selection in the matter of marriages.

And similarly, not long ago an account was published of an albino race somewhere in Canada which had acquired a special name.

Perhaps it has been wiped out by this time by wider marriages, though these might be effected with greater difficulty by albinos than by six-fingered persons. At any rate no one can doubt that it might at any time be wiped out by such marriages, though even when apparently wiped out, sporadic cases might be expected to occur: what the breeders call "throws-back," when they see an animal which resembles some ancestor further back in the line of descent than its actual progenitors. Certainly the most remarkable instance of the reliance which we have come to feel respecting this matter of inheritance is that which was afforded by a recent case of disputed paternity interesting on both sides of the Atlantic, since the events in dispute occurred in America andthe property and the dispute concerning it were in England.

It was obviously a most difficult and disputable case, but the judge, a shrewd observer, noticed, when the putative father was in the box, a feature in his countenance which seemed closely to resemble what was to be seen in the child which he claimed to be his own. A careful examination of the parents and of the child was made by an eminent sculptor, accustomed to minute observation of small features of variety in those sitting to him as models.

He reported and showed to the court that there were remarkable features in the head of the child which resembled, on the one hand an unusual configuration in the mother—or the woman who claimed to be the mother—and on the other a well-marked feature in her husband. And as a result the father and mother won their case, and were proclaimed the parents of the child because of the resemblance of these features; and, if we think for a moment, we shall see, because also of the reliance which the human race has come to place in the fidelity of inheritance, of its perfect certainty, so to speak, that a duck will not come out of a hen's egg, and the fact of this reliance on a generally received truth remains, whatever may be said as to the legal aspect of such evidence.

Inheritance is a fact recognised by everybody, and the only reason why we refuse to wonder at it is because, like other wonderful yet everyday facts, such as the growth of a great tree from atiny seed, itisso everyday that we have ceased to wonder at it. It is there: we know that. But have we any kind of idea how it comes about? The duck does not, as a matter of common experience, come out of a hen's egg. Why does it come out of a duck's egg? Why doesn't it come out, if only rarely, from a hen's egg? In other words, do we know what it is that explains inheritance or how it is that there is such a thing as inheritance? Well, candour obliges me to say that we do not. In spite of all the work which has been expended upon this question we are totally ignorant of the mechanism of heredity. Nevertheless it will be instructive to glance at the theories which have been put forward to explain this matter.

All living things spring from a small germ, and in the vast majority of cases this germ is the product in part of the male and in part of the female parent. It is therefore natural that we should in the first place turn our attention to this germ and ask ourselves whether there is anything in its construction which will give us the key of the mystery. There is not, at least there is nothing definite as shown by our most powerful microscopes. To be sure there is a remarkable substance, called chromatin because of its capacity for taking up certain dyes, which evidently plays some profoundly important part in the processes of development. We may suspect that this is the thing which carries the physical characteristics from one generation to another, but we cannot prove it; and though some authorities think thatit is, others deny it. Even if it be, it can hardly be supposed that microscopic research will ever be able to establish the fact, and that for reasons which must now be explained.

Let us suppose that we visit a vast botanic garden, and in the seed-time of each of the plants therein contained select from each plant a single ripe seed. It is clear that, if we take home that collection of seeds, we shall have in them a miniature picture of the garden from which they were culled, or at least we shall be in possession of the potentiality of such a garden, for, if we sow these seeds and have the good fortune to see them all develop, take root and grow, we shall actually possess a replica of the garden from which they came. Not exactly, it may be urged, for the distribution or arrangement of the seeds must have been carefully looked to, if the gardens are to resemble each other otherwise than in the mere possession of identical plants. I admit the truth of this, but cannot for the moment discuss it. At any rate we should have the same plants in both gardens.

On this analogy, many have suggested that every organ in the body—we must go further, and say that every marked feature in every organ in the body—is represented in the germ by a seed which can grow, under favourable circumstances, into just such another organ or feature of an organ. This was the theory put forward by Darwin under the name of "pangenesis," and by others under other titles with which it is unnecessary to burden these pages. All these theories havebeen summed together under the name "micromeristic," that is small-fragmented, or again, "particulate," since they all postulate the existence in the germ of innumerable small fragments—seeds—which are capable of growing into complete plants or organs under favourable circumstances. Again, this, even if true, does not by any means exhaust the matter, for it does not explain why the seed of the eye implants itself and grows in the right place in the head instead of making a home for itself, let us say, in the sole of the foot. But again we must pass over that matter.

There is nothing inherently impossible in this theory; indeed, if we allow that the transmission of inheritable characteristics is purely material, and it may be, there is only one other conceivable way in which it can occur. It is true that the seeds must be almost innumerable, but the germ, though small, is capable of accommodating an almost innumerable number of independent factors, if the prevalent views as to the constitution of matter are to be believed. And, as it is quite inconceivable that we can ever have microscopes which could detect such minute objects as the ultimate bricks of which the atom—no, not even the atoms themselves which compose the germ—consists, it is impossible that we should be able to say that the seed-theory is untrue. Even if we could see these ultimate constituents it is in the last degree unlikely that they would have any resemblance to the things which are, on this theory to grow from them,any more than the acorn resembles the oak which is to spring from it.

But observe! the germ on this view must contain not only seeds from the immediate parents but from many, perhaps all, of the older generations of the family, otherwise how are we to account for the appearance of ancestral peculiarities which the father and mother do not show? Moreover, since very minute things, like the inner angle of the eyebrow, may independently vary, there must be an enormous number of seeds apart altogether from the considerations alluded to in the last paragraph. And many authorities who have closely considered the question have come to the conclusion that the complexities introduced would be so great that it is impossible to believe in any micromeristic theory.

Then, of course, we must look out for some other explanation, and some have suggested that it is to be found in memory—the memory of the germ of what it was once part and the anticipation of what it may once more be. This again is an explanation not susceptible of proof along the lines of a chemical experiment, but not necessarily, therefore, untrue. Of course there are two ideas as to memory. If we are pure materialists and imagine every memory in our possession as something stamped, in some wholly incomprehensible manner, on some cell of our brain and looked at there, by some wholly inconceivable agency, when we sit down to think of past days, then we must look on the germ, under the "mnemic" or memory theory as consisting of fragments each ofthem impressed with the "memory" of some particular organ or feature of the body, and lo! we find ourselves back again in micromerism. If we are to take a non-materialistic view of memory we are plunged into a metaphysical discussion which cannot here be pursued. A third explanation, which by the way explains nothing, is that the whole matter is one of "arrangement," to which we shall return at the close of this paper.

The mechanism of inheritance must either be physical[33]or it must be non-physical; that is, immaterial. This is what emerges from our discussion, and so far as science goes to-day it must be admitted that neither of these explanations can be said to be accepted generally by men of science or proved—perhaps even capable of proof—by scientific methods. If we know little or nothing about the mechanism of inheritance, can we and do we know anything about the laws under which it works, or has it any laws? Or are its operations a mere chance-medley? It is hardly necessary to ask the latter question, for chance-medley could not lead to regular operations—operations so regular that a court of law may act upon their evidence. Yes: we answer to the first question very lightly but without perhaps always thinking what that affirmative answer implies, a point to be considered in a moment. It may atonce be said that we do now know a good deal about the laws under which inheritance works itself out, and that knowledge, as most people are now aware, is due to the quiet and for a time forgotten labours of Johann Gregor Mendel, once Abbot of the Augustinian Abbey of Brünn, a prelate of that Church which loud-voiced ignoramuses are never tired of proclaiming to have been from the beginning even down to the present day the impassioned and deadly enemy of all scientific progress. Mendel saw that former workers at inheritance had been directing their attention to thetout ensembleof an individual or natural object; his idea was analytical in its nature, for he directed his attention to individual characteristics, such as stature or colour, or the like. And having thus directed his attention and confined his labours mainly to plants, since the study of generations of most animals is too lengthy a process for one man to carry out, he did in fact discover that there are very definite laws, capable even of numerical statement, under which inheritance acts. There is no need to explain or discuss them here: suffice it to say that therearesuch laws,[34]as is now admitted by an overwhelming majority of the biologists of to-day. Mendel's facts were hidden in a somewhat obscure journal; they lay dormant, much to his annoyance, during his lifetime. Years after his death his papers were unearthed, and hisdiscoveries have been proclaimed as being as fundamental to biology as those of Newton and Dalton to other sciences.

There are, then, laws. That means one of two things: either that these laws arose by chance-medley, or that some one enacted them. It seems impossible, when one surveys the orderly operations of Nature, among which are those conducted under the laws known by the name of their discoverer, Mendel—it seems wholly impossible that these operations arose by chance-medley. To me, at any rate, any such explanation is wholly unthinkable. But if it be an impossible explanation, as I and many thousands, not to say millions, of other persons believe, then there is no other way out of it than that these operations must have been planned by some one; in other words, that there must have been a Creator and Deviser of the world.

People hide from this explanation, and one of the favourite sandbanks in which this particular kind of human ostrich plunges its head is "Nature." "Nature does this," and "Nature does that," forgetting entirely the fact that "Nature" is a mere personification and means either chance-medley or a Creator, according to the old dilemma. There is a very curious example of this inability or unwillingness to admit—perhaps even to understand—the force of this argument exhibited by those to whom one would suppose that it would come home with overpowering force: I mean, of course, the Mendelians.

The most learned of these, and one of the mostopen-minded of men, hints in one place that though he does not think it necessary himself to believe it, yet it might at least be suggested that, if in a certain organism we find things so placed that a certain combination is bound to emerge in a certain generation, such a state of affairs might have been prearranged. Now, if it was prearranged, the awful fact emerges that there must have been an arranger; in other words, a creative power. This explanation is taboo in certain circles. But one may reasonably ask, "What then?" Is it really suggested that these orderly sets of occurrences may occur not once or twice only but thousands and thousands of times, and this may all happen by chance? A very distant acquaintance with the mathematics of probability will show that this is a wholly untenable theory. We are generally answered by some purely verbal explanation, like the personification of "Nature" already alluded to.

Thus, in a recent discussion on inheritance in a Presidential Address to the British Association, to which I have already alluded, the writer with whose explanation I have just been dealing states that he thinks it "unlikely" that the factors of inheritance are "in any simple or literal sense material particles," and proceeds thus: "I suspect rather that their properties depend on some phenomenon of arrangement." Now, in the first place, this is no explanation at all, for the mechanism of inheritance must be either material or immaterial. If there is a phenomenon of "arrangement" there must be something to be"arranged," and this something can hardly be other than material if it is to be "arranged" at all. But let that pass. What is far more important is to remember that if a thing is to be "arranged" there must be somebody to "arrange" it, for chance-medley cannot "arrange" anything in an orderly manner; or if it could do so once, cannot be supposed capable of doing it a second time in a precisely similar manner, not to say capable of doing it countless thousands of times.

If we go into a great museum our first idea, perhaps our last, concerns the arrangement found therein. But it may safely be said that no sane person ever entertained that idea without being perfectly aware that the arrangement was made by human hands, controlled, in the last resort, by the brain of the curator of the museum. Now, in a sense, the living body is a museum containing specimens of different kinds of cells. There are brain-cells, liver-cells, bone-cells, scores of different varieties of cells, and all of them, so to speak, are arranged in their appropriate cases.

If we go to the brain-case we can search it through and through without finding a liver-cell, any more than we should find a typical brain-cell embedded in the marrow of one of the bones. The different specimens all occupy their appropriate positions. How did they get there? The future animal, like animals of all kinds, including man, commences as a single cell. All save a few interesting but at present negligible cases are composed of elements drawn from maleand female parents. This cell divides up into a multitude of others. At first these are to all appearances identical, but later they begin to differentiate, at first into three classes and afterwards into the multitude of different cells of which the body is composed. Further, these groups of cells become aggregated in appropriate groups, cells of one kind uniting with cells of the same kind and with no others. Here we have to do with arrangement, consummately skilful arrangement, an arrangement which practically never fails, for, leaving aside the case of monstrosity, a consideration of which would detain us too long, not merely are the various cells all placed in their proper positions, as we have seen, but their aggregation, the individual, is so formed as to belong to the proper compartment of that large museum, the world—the same compartment as that occupied by his progenitors. Neither the particulate nor the chemical theories help us here. The mnemic would, but it has its initial and insuperable difficulty, pointed out in another article in this volume, that, as you must have an experience before you can remember it, it in no way accounts for the first operation of arrangement. As to the material explanations, particulate or chemical, they amount to something like this: you have half a cart-load of bricks from one yard and half a cart-load from another, and when the bricks are dumped down in an appropriate place they form a little house, just like those occupied by the managers of the brickyards. So they may, but no one in his sense supposes thatthey will thus arrange themselves of their own power. Some one must arrange them. Who arranges the tiny bricks of which the animal body consists, or what arranges them? To revert to our previous example of the garden; suppose that we bring back from that which we desire to copy a bag of seeds representing all the plants which it contains. We have a plot of land of the same size as our example; we dig it and we dung it and then we scatter our seeds perfectly haphazard over its surface. What are the odds as to their coming up in an exactly similar pattern to those in the other garden. Mathematicians, I suppose, could calculate the probabilities, but they must be infinitesimally small. Yet in the case of the animal the pattern is always observed.

It is quite useless for any one, however eminent an authority he may be, to dismiss the matter by saying "It is a phenomenon of arrangement," for that begs the whole question. A Martian visitor taken to Westminster Abbey and told that its construction was a "phenomenon of arrangement" might be expected to turn a scornful eye upon his cicerone and reply, "Any fool can see that, but who arranged it?"

Hence, though wild horses would not drag such an admission from many, we are irresistibly compelled to adopt the theory of a Creator and a Maintainer also of nature and its operations—so-called—if we are to escape from the absurdities involved in any other explanation. Thus there are very important and fundamental matters to be deduced from the very little which we knowabout inheritance, just as there are from a hundred and one other lines of consideration related to this world and its contents. We do not know very much—it may fairly be said weknownothing as to the vehicle of inheritance. We know a little, but it is still a very little even in comparison with what we may yet come to know as the result of careful and long-continued experiment, about the laws of inheritance. What we do learn from our knowledge, such as it is, is the fact that we can give no intelligent or intelligible explanation of the facts brought before us except on the hypothesis of a Creator and Maintainer of all things.

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