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student should have yet explored the flowery wilderness of Eastern Chronicles . He would find in the ancient annals of ffersia , and in the still more accessible traditions of the Rajpoots , many striking illustrations of the true spirit , as well as of the outward forms of chivalry . And he would thence learn in what degree the material and social progress of the West is due to commerce , in what degree to Christianity ; for , until the principles of commerce beg an to be understood and developed , the Christian nations of Europe never attained a higher order of knowledge and refinement than has prevailed , among Hindoos and Mussulmans .
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BADEN POWELL ON DEVELOPMENT . Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy , the Unity of Worlds , and the Philosophy of Creation . By the Rev . Baden Powell . Longman and Co . ( third article . ) The third and last Essay of this excellent work is devoted to the question of Development , which after its revival in the Vestiges of Creation , excited , and will for some time continue to excite , such profusion of bad temper and bad logic . Nowhere are the courage and sincerity of the Rev . Baden Powell shown more honourably than in this Essay . He uniformly argues with the temper and the clearness of a philosopher . He strains no point , indulges in no rhetoric , attempts no dogmatic brow-beating . He examines the arguments in a thoroughly candid spirit ; and brings forward several of his own which are of weight . Admitting that the names most eminent in Geology and Physiology are against the Hypothesis of Development , he truly remarks that the question is one of general principles of reasoning rather than of precise scientific details ; and thus , without venturing to impugn the science of these authorities , he calls in question their logic . How he does so the reader will do well to seek in this Essay . We shall only touch it here and there .
The Hypothesis , he rightly considers as an Hypothesis , one which seems supported by analogy and probability , helping the general conception of some great principle of orderly evolution , according to which the present as well as the past systems of existence have been produced out of the preceding order of things , and " at least conspiring with all truly philosophical considerations to disprove the necessity for appealing to any sudden interruptions of order , or operations of an unknown and mysterious kind , alien from all natural causes . " Let the Hypothesis be admissible or inadmissible , one thing is certain , that the cause of Truth ean only be injured by the disgraceful tone usually adopted by the antagonists of this Hypothesis . Hear the Savilian Professor with mild yet firm reproof : —
Looking at the question in a perfectly dispassionate manner , there appears to me a one-sidedness in the censures , or at least , excessive cautions , often expressed , against eo hazardous an hypothesis as that of transmutation , even by some eminent philosophers , more than is warranted by sober philosophical considerations ; and in Avhich others display more zeal than , can be explained by mere antagonism in a fair scientific -controversy , while they sometimes appear to betray even a degree of alarm at the bare suspicion of a leaning towards the obnoxious theory of development , as if their whole scientific , or even personal reputation were at stake . Some , again , have taken up such questions in a more determined controversial spirit , and have maintained in a tone of polemical acrimony , little to have been expected on such a subject , that the phenomena of new species are absolutely impossible to be explained on any physical principles , or even by any physical conjectures ; and must be ascribed to sudden interruptions of the order of nature , connected with the convulsions and catastrophes which overwhelmed all the old species , and were of a kind wholly beyond the domain of physical causes or the limits of philosophical examination .
Such imaginations easily find favour with those who have some other object in view than mere philosophical truth ; and if somewhat faulty in their foundation , their weakness in reason is abundantly compensated by loudness of dogmatism and a peremptory style of assertion that " species are real existences , " and that " transmutation is impossible ; " all which has an imposing effect when supported by the aid of a kind of mystified eloquence , and seconding the more awful denunciations so authoritatively pronounced against the heterodox speculations of the developmental school . Again : — But still more injurious to the cause of religious truth is the course too often resorted to by the professed defenders of its cause , even in the present time . Not
always duly alive to the actual spread of intelligence , they cringe to the loud but ignorant zeal of the few , and become followers in the train of prejudice rather than its correctors and enlightcncra . They have too often yet to learn that , by continuing to insist on dogmas which the advance of knowledge has discredited , and literal interpretations which the discoveries of science have sut aside , by adopting fallacious compromises , or by discouraging and denouncing those open avowals which alone consist with tlie reality of truth , and that freo inquiry which Christianity challenges—they are following a course as unworthy in principle us it in short-sighted in policy ; they are inflicting the worst injury on their own cause , and are but strengthening the arms of that sceptical hostility which they so strenuously profess to opposo .
Now , wo think our readers will agree with us in the importance we attach to u work like the present , issuing from Oxford , avowed by an Oxford Professor , whose character and position alike give authority to his language—a work which besides its positive merits , and those of an unusual order , has the other merit of rescuing from theological sophisms and bad temper a scientific Hypothesis , ingenious as an Hypothesis , useful us an aid towards forming general conceptions of nature , stringing facts upon a , thread of interest , and leading the minds of men to consider some of ' the prolbundest problems of Biology . People nuty be frightened tiwuy from this subject , an they were for so Tnnny years frightened away from Geology . But in the end , the courage of investigators ' must prevail . This work will not a little aid thu progresa of the timid . The author , of the Vestiges hits hud no ally so potent ; and the alliance is all the more effective , because Mr . Powell by no ino » n > 8 takes up the position of a partisan . lie does not declare in favour of Development ; but he declares in favour of the Hypothesis as an Hypothesis . The examination of the evidence pro and con . afforded by Geology is masterly . The remarks on species also deserve attention ; from them wo oxtract the following : —¦
Much discussiou ( as is well known ) has arisen on the ' .-question -whether the < different races of men-arevarieties of one species , or distinct species : and it seems to he at present the prevailing opinion , thai they are-variet&ee merely . But the question , koto , by what steps or processes ,, did such large and fundamental differences arise ? entails more important consequences than many in their zeal to maintain a single origin seem to perceive . It is clear that these differences are , fully as great as those which in many other cases are allowed to constitute distinct species . If in the case of man they have occurred as transitional varieties , how comes it that they have become so inveterately permanent ? And if those changes have all occurred within the lapse of a few thousand years of the received chronology , it cannot with
any reason be denied that similar changes might occur among inferior animals , and become just as permanent . And if so , changes to an indefinitely greater extent might occur in indefinite lapse of time . If these changes take place by the gradual operation of natural causes , it would be preposterous to deny the possibility of equal or greater changes by equally natural causes in other species in equal or greater periods of time ; The advocates of the fixity of species would argue that the single spot on a butterfly ' s wing , which constitutes a species , never has changed , and never can change , without a miracle ; and yet the vast differences between a European and a Negro or Australian are mere modifications of one parent stock by natural causes in the lapse of a few thousand years !
The peculiar characters of the Negro race are recorded as prominently marked , as at present , in the ancient Egyptian paintings , which may go back 3000 ' years or more . Here , then , is a variety which has been permanent for at least that long period ; a period , too , which has been expressly relied on by many to prove the permanence of species by appeal to these very monuments . And then we have to ask , How long must it have taken , at this rate of imperceptible progress , to have been developed out of the original stock ? Another instance has been much dwelt upon , the so-called " varieties" of the dog , presumed to be derived from a common stock ; but how long since , is undetermined . Yet in these variettes ( in which even the form of the cranium greatly differs ) it would be difficult to deny that the distinctive characters are permanent , at least under the continuance of the same external conditions ; and that each race , when preserved isolated under such conditions , would remain permanently distinct .
Much stress has also been laid by some on the asserted sterility of hybrids ; though , in truth , it affects very little the general question ; while its very limited evidence dependent only on a few isolated facts , occurring in a state of domestication , is utterly insufficient for the foundation of any general law . The cases commonly referred to should be regarded by an unprejudiced mind as probably exceptional , under peculiar conditions , and not to be dogmatised upon , as involving any real and necessary law of organised existence . As there are limits beyond which union will not take place , so within these there may very probably be certain limits of still nearer affinity , beyond ¦ which sterility in the offspring prevails , but which have not yet been determined . The recurrence to the original type often observed , only proves that conditions are not favourable to the continuance of the variety . And of the very positive assertions so liberally made in these and the like cases , it is to be observed that they are , at best merely empirical conclusions , wholly unsupported by any wide analogies , or explained by any known causes which can confer on them the character of real natural principles .
Yet the immutability of species , as something essential to their nature and inherent in it , has been upheld by a large section of naturalists—and still more strenuously by some who are not naturalists—in this country , with a degree of positiveness and even vehemence , which the mere negative character of the evidence could never justify , and which it would be difficult to account for , so far as any arguments of a philosophical nature may be supposed to influence the opinion . It is indeed difficult to say what extent of mysticism is not connected in the minds of some with the notion of the immutability of species . Even such sober naturalists as MM . Agassiz and Gould speak of it as dependent on an " immaterial principle " essential to animal life . But in other schools , especially on the Continent , opposite views are extensively maintained , and probably gaining ground . In the case of plants more particularly , it is simply as a question of facts that some eminent botanists view the matter . Thus one of the most distinguished foreign naturalists , Prof . Schleiden of Jena , after giving a variety of illustrative instances , thus sums up the state of the case : —
" We know that varieties once formed , when they have continued to vegetate under the same conditions for several generations , pass into sub-species ; that is , into varieties which may be propagated with certainty by their seeds . How , then , if the same influences which have called forth an aberration from the original form of the plant , continue to act in the same way , not for centuries or tens of centuries , but for ton or a hundred thousand years , will not at last , as the variety thus becomes a subspecies , so also , this , become so permanent , that we shall and must describe it as a species . " One of the great arguments relied on by the adversaries of Development is , thut " we have no experience of the individuals of any species being produced otherwise tliun from individuals of its own kiud . " This argument , as Mr . Powell remarks , assumes the whole question at issue . And he adds :
On the whole , then , comparing the limited extent and purely empirical nature of our knowledge of species in the existing state of things , with the positive evidence of past changes , it Mould scum that the more correct statement of the general fact would be dimply that species Qwit . hin certain limits of deviation ) are permanent during very lung periods , but beyond those j > eriods a change , in some sense , occurs ; and this hears sonic relation to changes of external conditions . 13 ut under the same change of conditions one species may ba highly susceptible of , and sensitive to , the influence of that change , while another may be insensible to it . Thus one may remain permanent , while another may undergo change , or even bo exterminated . And the only question is as to the sense " in -which such change of species is to bo understood;— whether nidivariations at
viduals , naturally produced from parents , were modified by siiceitssivo parts , in any stage of curly growth or rudimental development , until , m one or more generations , the wholn species became in fact a different « no;—or whether wo are to believe that the whole race perished without , icproduoiug itself , while , independent of it , another new race , or other new individuals ( by whatever moans ) , cumo mtoexistonco , of a nature closely allied to the last , mill differing ollun by tho sl . ghtest shades yet uncoumc . ttd with them hi , decent ; whether thoro was a continuation and propagation of tho « rme principle of vitality ( in whatovm-germ it may bo ini . ijrm . Kl to hnvo bean oonvuyflcl > , or whether / , „ ,, „ principle or germ originated independently ot any preceding , out of its existing inorganic e / c / itv / it . i .
We ha e ' < . ^ experience' of tho formation of coal . Y « l in past epochs we know it occurred and it b m ouutod tor by known and existing causes . The Hubmergonee of for"L—the . iouiX on » f voluble matter ,-the compression of ... at ari * Is by ot loiosts , —tlie iieoiuuiiiiiuon . „ jluid , —aro known natural causes , which da , ttuponncuinbont nmstttw , wnotnoi hojiu u » u »«« , . ' ,, !„ . !__ ~^™ r ^ » 'ZX ^ % !^ £ XJ ^ £ ZZ £ Su ^ nJtlLTJKIrSfa ii- , w » l ™* PO * - - f ~ — . - » of this , undeniably , we can have » no experience .
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June 9 , 1855 . 1 . THE LEAD EH . & 4 t ?
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Leader (1850-1860), June 9, 1855, page 547, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2094/page/19/
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