Reflections and Comments 1865 1895 by Edwin Lawrence Godkin

E >> Edwin Lawrence Godkin >> Reflections and Comments 1865 1895

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The true source of the _odium philologicum_ is, we think, to be
found in the fact that a man's speech is apt to be, or to be
considered, an indication of the manner in which he has been bred,
and of the character of the company he keeps. Criticism of his mode
of using words, or his pronunciation, or the manner in which he
compounds his sentences, almost inevitably takes the character of an
attack on his birth, parentage, education, and social position; or,
in other words, on everything which he feels most sensitive about or
holds most dear. If you say that his pronunciation is bad, or that
his language is slangy or ill-chosen, you insinuate that when he
lived at home with his papa and mamma he was surrounded by bad
models, or, in plain English, that his parents were vulgar or
ignorant people; when you say that he writes bad grammar, or is
guilty of glaring solecisms, or displays want of etymological
knowledge, you insinuate that his education was neglected, or that
he has not associated with correct speakers. Usually, too, you do
all this in the most provoking way by selecting passages from his
writings on which he probably prided himself, and separating them
totally from the thought of which he was full when he produced them,
and then examining them mechanically, as if they were algebraic
signs, which he used without knowing what they meant or where they
would bring him out. Nobody stands this process very long with
equanimity, because nobody can be subjected to it without being
presented to the public somewhat in the light of an ignorant,
careless, and pretentious donkey. Nor will it do to cite your
examples from deceased authors. You cannot do so without assailing
some form of expression which an eager, listening enemy is himself
in the habit of using, and is waiting for you to take up, and
through which he hopes to bring you to shame.

No man, moreover, can perform the process without taking on airs
which rouse his victim to madness, because he assumes a position not
only of grammatical, but, as we have said, of social superiority. He
says plainly enough, no matter how polite or scientific he may try
to seem, "I was better born and bred than you, and acquired these
correct turns of expression, of which you know nothing, from
cultivated relatives;" or, "I live in cultivated circles, and am
consequently familiar with the best usage, which you, poor fellow!
are not. I am therefore able to decide this matter without argument
or citations, and your best course is to take my corrections in
silence or with thankfulness." It is easy to understand how all
interest in orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody speedily
disappears in a controversy of this sort, and how the disputants
begin to burn with mutual dislike, and how each longs to inflict
pain and anguish on his opponent, and make him, no matter by what
means, an object of popular pity and contempt, and make his parts of
speech odious and ridiculous. The influence of all good men ought to
be directed either to repressing verbal criticism, or restricting
indulgence in it to the family circle or to schools and colleges.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S LECTURES

Biologist like Professor Huxley have, as popular lecturers, the
advantage over scientific men in other fields, of occupying
themselves with what is to ninety-nine men and women out of a
hundred the most momentous of all problems--the manner in which life
on this globe began, and in which men and other animals came to be
what they are. The doctrine of evolution as a solution of these
problems, or of one of them, derives additional interest from the
fact that in many minds it runs counter to ideas which a very large
proportion of the population above the age of thirty imbibed with
the earliest and most impressive portion of their education. Down to
1850 the bulk of intelligent men and women believed that the world,
and all that is therein, originated in the precise manner described
in the first chapter of Genesis, and about six thousand years ago.
Most of the adaptations, or attempts at adaptation, of what is
called the Mosaic account of the creation, of the chronological
theories of the geologists and evolutionists by theologians and
Biblical scholars have been made within that period, and it may be
safely said that it is only within ten or fifteen years that any
clear knowledge of the "conflict between science and religion" has
reached that portion of the people who take a lively or, indeed, any
interest, in religious matters. It would not, in fact, be rash to
say that little or nothing is known about this conflict to this hour
among the great body of Methodists or Catholics, or the evangelical
portion of other denominations, and that their religious outlook is
little, if at all, affected by it. One would never detect, for
instance, in Mr. Moody's preaching, any indication that he had ever
heard of any such conflict, or that the doctrines of the orthodox
Protestant Church had undergone any sensible modification within a
hundred years. Professor Huxley and men like him, therefore, make
their appearance now not simply as manipulators of a most
interesting subject, but as disturbers of beliefs which are widely
spread, deeply rooted, and surrounded by the tenderest and most
sacred associations of human existence.

That under such circumstances he has met with so little opposition
is, on the whole, rather surprising. As far as our observation has
gone, no strong hostility whatever to himself or his teachings has
been shown, except in one or two instances, by either the clergy or
the religious press. Indeed, ministers formed a very prominent and
attentive portion of his audience at the recent lectures at
Chickering Hall. But it has been made very apparent by the articles
and letters which these lectures have called out in the newspapers
that the religious public has hardly understood him. The collision
between the theologians and the scientific men has been very slight
among us; and, indeed, the waves of the controversy hardly reached
this country until the storm had passed away in Europe, so that it
is difficult for Americans to appreciate the combative tone of Mr.
Huxley's oratory. Of this difficulty the effect of his substitution
of Milton for Moses as the historian of the creation, on the night
of his first lecture, has furnished an amusing illustration. The
audience, or at least that portion of it which was gifted with any
sense of humor, saw the joke and laughed over it heartily. It was
simply a telling rhetorical device, intended to point a sarcasm
directed against the biblical commentators who have been trying to
extract the doctrines of evolution from the first chapter of
Genesis. But many of the newspapers all over the country took it up
seriously, and the professor must, if he saw them, have enjoyed
mightily the various letters and articles which have endeavored in
solemn earnest to show that Milton was not justly entitled to the
rank of a scientific expositor, and that it was a cowardly thing in
the lecturer to attack Moses over Milton's shoulders. Whenever
Professor Huxley enters on the defence of his science, as
distinguished from the exposition of it, there are traces in his
language of the _gaudium certaminis_ which has found expression in
so many hard-fought fields in his own country, and which has made
him perhaps the most formidable antagonist, in so far as dialectics
go, that the transcendental philosophers have ever encountered. He
is, _par excellence_, a fighting man, but certainly his pugnacity
diminishes neither his worth nor his capacity.

In many of the comments which his lectures have called out in the
newspapers one meets every now and then with a curious failure to
comprehend the position which an average non-scientific man occupies
in such a conflict as in now going on over the doctrines of
evolution. Professor Huxley was very careful not to repeat the error
which delivered Professor Tyndall into the hands of the enemy at
Belfast. He expressed no opinion as to the nature of the causal
force which called the world into existence. He did not profess to
know anything about the sources of life. He consequently did not
once place himself on the level of the theologian or the
unscientific spectator. What he undertook to do and did was to
present to the audience some specimens of the evidence by which
evolutionists have been led to the conclusion that their theory is
correct. Now, the mistake which a good many newspaper writers--some
of them ministers--have made in passing judgment on the lectures
lies in their supposing that this evidence must be weak and
incomplete because _they_ have not been convinced. There is
probably no more widely diffused fallacy, or one which works more
mischief in all walks of life, than the notion that it is only those
whose business it is to persuade who need to be trained in the art
of proof, and that those who are to be persuaded need no process of
preparation at all.

The fact is that skill in reasoning is as necessary on the one side
as the other. He cannot be fully and rightly convinced who does not
himself know how to convince, and no man is competent to judge in
the last resort of the force of an argument who is not on something
like an equality of knowledge and dialectical skill with the
person using it. This is true in all fields of discussion; it is
pre-eminently true in scientific fields. Of course, therefore, the
real public of the scientific man--the public which settles finally
whether he has made out his case--is a small one. Outside of it
there is another and larger one on which his reasoning may act with
irresistible force; but just as the fact that it does so act does
not prove that his hypothesis is true, so also the fact that it has
failed to convince proves nothing against its soundness. In other
words, a man's occupying the position of a listener does not
necessarily clothe him with the attributes of a judge, and there may
be as much folly and impertinence in his going about saying, "I do
not agree with Huxley; he has not satisfied me; he will have to
produce more proof than that before I believe in evolution," as in
going about saying, "I know as much about evolution as Huxley and
could give as good a lecture on it as he any day." And yet a good
many people are guilty of the one who would blush at the mere
thought of the other.

Another fertile source of confusion in this and similar
controversies is the habit which transcendentalists, theological and
other, have of using the term "truth" in two different senses, the
scientific sense and the religious or spiritual sense. The
scientific man only uses it in one. Truth to him is something
capable of demonstration by some one of the canons of induction. He
knows nothing of any truth which cannot be proved. The religious
man, on the other hand, and especially the minister, has been bred
in the application of the term to facts of an entirely different
order--that is, to emotions produced by certain beliefs which he
cannot justify by any arguments, and about which to him no argument
is necessary. These are the "spiritual truths" which are said to be
perceptible often to the simple-minded and unlearned, though hidden
from the wise and prudent. Now there is no decently educated
religious man who does not perceive the distinction between these
two kinds of truths, and few who do not think they keep this
distinction in mind when passing upon the great problems of the
origin and growth of the universe. But, as a matter of fact, we see
the distinction ignored every day. People go to scientific lectures
and read scientific books with their heads filled with spiritual
truths, which have come they know not whence, and which give them
infinite comfort in all the trying passages of life, and in view of
this comfort must, they think, connect them by invisible lines of
communication with the great Secret of the Universe, toward which
philosophers try to make their way by visible lines. When, then,
they find that the scientific man's induction makes no impression on
this other truth, and that he cannot dislodge any theory of the
growth or government of the world which has become firmly imbedded
in it, they are apt to conclude that there is something faulty in
his methods, or rash and presumptuous in his conclusions. But there
is only one course for the leaders of religious thought to follow in
order to prevent the disastrous confusion which comes of the sudden
and complete break-down of the moral standards and sanctions by
which the mass of mankind live, and that is to put an end at once,
and gracefully, to the theory that the spiritual truth which brings
the peace which passeth understanding has any necessary connection
with any theory of the physical universe, or can be used to refute
it or used as a substitute for it, or is dependent on the
authenticity or interpretation of any book. They must not flatter
themselves because a scientific man here and there doubts or
gainsays, or because some learned theologian is still unconvinced,
or because the mental habits of which faith is born seem to hold
their ground or show signs of revival, that the philosophy of which
Huxley is a master is not slowly but surely gaining ground. The
proofs may not yet be complete, but they grow day by day; some of
the elder scientific men may scout, but no young ones are appearing
to take their places and preach their creed. The tide seems
sometimes to ebb from month to month, but it rises from year to
year. The true course of spiritually minded men under these
circumstances is to separate their faith from all theories of the
precise manner in which the world originated, or of the length of
time it has lasted, as matters, for their purposes, of little or no
moment. The secret springs of hope and courage from which each of us
draws strength in the great crises of existence would flow all the
same whether life appeared on the planet ten million or ten thousand
years ago, and whether the present forms of life were the product of
one day or of many ages. And we doubt very much whether anyone has
ever listened in a candid and dispassionate frame of mind to the
evolutionist's history of the globe without finding that it had
deepened for him the mystery of the universe, and magnified the
Power which stands behind it.

Not the least interesting feature in the discussion about the theory
of evolution is the prominent part taken in it by clergymen of
various denominations. There is hardly one of them who, since
Huxley's lectures, has not preached a sermon bearing on the matter
in some way, and several have made it the topic of special articles
or lectures. In fact, we do not think we exaggerate when we say that
three-fourths of all that has been recently said or written about
the hypothesis in this country has been said or written by
ministers. There is no denying that the theory, if true, does, in
appearance at least, militate against the account of the creation
given in the first chapter of Genesis, or, in other words, against
the view of the origin of life on the globe which has been held
by the Christian world for seventeen centuries. It would, therefore,
be by no means surprising that ministers should meet it, either
by showing that the Mosaic account of the creation was really
inspired--was, in short, the account given by the Creator
himself--or that the modern interpretations of it were incorrect,
and that it was really, when perfectly understood, easily reconciled
with the conclusions reached of late years by geologists and
biologists. This is the way in which a great many ministers have
hitherto met the evolutionists, and for this sort of work they are
undoubtedly fitted by education and experience. If it can be done by
anyone, they are the men to do it. If it be maintained that the
biblical account is literally true, they are more familiar than any
other class of men with the evidence and arguments accumulated by
the Church in favor of the inspiration of the Scriptures; or if, on
the other hand, it be desired to reconcile the Bible with evolution,
they are more familiar than any other class of men with the
exegetical process by which this reconciliation can be effected.
They are specially trained in ecclesiastical history and tradition,
in Greek and Hebrew religious literature, and in the methods of
interpretation which have been for ages in use among theologians.

Of late, however, they have shown a decided inclination to abandon
the purely ecclesiastical approach to the controversy altogether,
and this is especially remarkable in the discussion now pending over
Huxley. They do not seek to defend the biblical account of the
creation, or to reconcile it with the theory of the evolutionists.
Far from it, they have come down, in most of the recent cases, into
the scientific arena, and are meeting the men of science with their
own weapons. They tell Huxley and Darwin and Tyndall that their
evidence is imperfect, and their reasoning from it faulty. Noticing
their activity in this new field, and the marked contrast which this
activity presents to the modesty or indifference of the other
professions--the lawyers and doctors, for instance, who on general
grounds have fully as much reason to be interested in evolution as
the ministers, and have hitherto been at least as well fitted to
discuss it--we asked ourselves whether it was possible that, without
our knowledge, any change had of late years been made in the
curriculum of the divinity schools or theological seminaries with
the view of fitting ministers to take a prominent part in the
solution of the increasingly important and startling problems raised
by physical science. In order to satisfy ourselves, we lately turned
over the catalogues of all the principal divinity schools in the
country, to see if any chairs of natural science had been
established, or if candidates for the ministry had to undergo any
compulsory instruction in geology or physics, or the higher
mathematics, or biology, or palaeontology, or astronomy, or had to
become versed in the methods of scientific investigation in the
laboratory or in the dissecting-room, or were subjected to any
unusually severe discipline in the use of the inductive process. Not
much to our surprise, we found nothing of the kind. We found that,
to all appearance, not even the smallest smattering of natural
science in any of its branches is considered necessary to a
minister's education; no astronomy, no chemistry, no biology, no
geology, no higher mathematics, no comparative anatomy, and nothing
severe in logic. In fact, of special preparation for the discussion
of such a theme as the origin of life on the earth, there does not
appear to be in the ordinary course of our divinity schools any
trace.

We then said to ourselves, But ministers are modest, truthful men;
they would not knowingly pass themselves off as competent on a
subject with which they were unfitted to deal. They are no less
candid and self-distrustful, for instance, than lawyers and doctors,
and a lawyer or doctor who ventured to tackle a professed scientist
on a scientific subject to which he had given no systematic study
would be laughed at by his professional brethren, and would suffer
from it even in his professional reputation, as it would be taken to
indicate a dangerous want of self-knowledge. Perhaps, then, the
training given in the divinity schools, though it does not touch
special fields of science, is such as to prepare the mind for the
work of induction by some course of intellectual gymnastics.
Perhaps, though it does not familiarize a man with the facts of
geology and biology and astronomy, it so disciplines him in the work
of collecting and arranging facts of any kind, and reasoning from
them, that he will be a master in the art of proof, and that, in
short, though he may not have a scientific man's knowledge, he will
have his mental habits.

But we found this second supposition as far from the truth as the
first one was. Moreover, the mental constitution of the young men
who choose the ministry as a profession is not apt to be of a kind
well fitted for scientific investigation. Reverence is one of their
prominent characteristics, and reverence predisposes them to accept
things on authority. They are inclined to seek truth rather as a
means of repose than for its own sake, and to fancy that it is
associated closely with spiritual comfort, and that they have
secured the truth when they feel the comfort. Though, last not
least, they enter the seminary with a strong bias in favor of one
particular theory of the origin of life and of the history of the
race, and their subsequent studies are marked out and pursued with
the set purpose of strengthening this bias and of qualifying them to
defend it and spread it, and of associating in their minds the doubt
or rejection of it with moral evil. The consequence is that they go
forth, trained not as investigators or inquirers, but as advocates,
charged with the defence against all comers of a view of the
universe which they have accepted ready-made from teachers. A worse
preparation for scientific pursuits of any kind can hardly be
imagined. The slightest trace of such a state of mind in a
scientific man--that is, of a disposition to believe a thing on
grounds of feeling or interest, or with reference to practical
consequences, or to jump over gaps in proof in order to reach
pleasant conclusions--discredits him with his fellows, and throws
doubt on his statements.

We are not condemning this state of mind for all purposes. Indeed,
we think the wide-spread prevalence of the philosophic way of
looking at things would be in many respects a great misfortune for
the race, and we acknowledge that a rigidly trained philosopher
would be unfit for most of a minister's functions; but we have only
to describe a minister's education in order to show his exceeding
unreadiness for contentions such as some of his brethren are
carrying on with geologists and physicists and biologists. In fact,
there is no educated calling whose members are not, on the whole,
better equipped for fighting in scientific fields over the
hypothesis of evolution. Our surprise at seeing lawyers and doctors
engaged in it would be very much less justifiable, for a portion at
least of the training received in these professions is of a
scientific cast, and concerns the selection and classification of
facts, while a clergyman's is almost wholly devoted to the study of
the opinions and sayings of other men. In truth, theology, properly
so called, is a collection of opinions. Nor do these objections to a
clergyman's mingling in scientific disputes arise out of his belief
about the origin and government of the world _per se_, because one
does not think of making them to trained religious philosophers; for
instance, to Principal Dawson or Mr. St. George Mivart. Some may
think or say that the religious prepossessions of these gentlemen
lessen the weight of their opinions on a certain class of scientific
questions, but no one would question their right to share in
scientific discussions.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Some of the letters from clergymen which have been called out by our
article on the part recently taken by them in scientific discussion
maintain that, although ministers may not be familiar with the facts
of science, many of them are fully competent to weigh the arguments
founded on these facts put forward by scientific men, and decide
whether they have proved their case or not; or, in other words, that
we were mistaken in saying that the theological seminaries did not
afford severe training in the use of the inductive process, and that
it could not be used effectively without knowledge of the matters on
which it was used. More than one of these letters points, in support
of this view, to the answer of the Rev. Dr. Taylor, of this city,
to Professor Huxley's lectures, published some weeks ago in the
_Tribune_, and we believe the _Tribune_ presented the author to the
public as "a trained logician."

We have accordingly turned to Dr. Taylor's letter and given it a
much more attentive reading than we confess we gave it when it first
appeared, for the purpose of seeing whether it was really true that
ministers were such dexterous and highly taught dialecticians that
they could overthrow a scientific man, even on a subject of which
they knew little or nothing--whether, in short, they could really
treat the question of evolution algebraically, and, by the mere aid
of signs of the meaning of which they were ignorant, put the Huxleys
and Darwins to confusion. For Dr. Taylor opens in this way:

"Let it be understood, then, that I have no fault to find with
Mr. Huxley as a discoverer of facts or as an exponent of
comparative anatomy. In both of these respects he is beyond all
praise of mine, and I am ready to sit at his feet; but when he
begins to reason from the facts which he sets forth, then, like
every other reasoner, he is amenable to the laws of
argumentation, and his conclusions are to be tested by the
relation which they bear to the premises which he has advanced,
and by the proof which he furnishes for the premises
themselves."

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