I venture to think, then, that the Duke of Argyll might have spared
his "Little Lesson" as well as his "Great Lesson" with advantage. The
paternal authority who whips the child for sins he has not committed
does not strengthen his moral influence--rather excites contempt and
repugnance. And if, as would seem from this and former monitory
allocutions which have been addressed to us, the Duke aspires to the
position of censor, or spiritual director, in relation to the men who
are doing the work of physical science, he really must get up his
facts better. There will be an end to all chance of our kissing the
rod if his Grace goes wrong a third time. He must not say again that
"no serious reply has been attempted" to a view which was discussed
and repudiated, two years before, by one of the highest extant
authorities on the subject; he must not say that Darwin accepted that
which it can be proved he did not accept; he must not say that a
doctrine has dropped into the abyss when it is quite obviously alive
and kicking at the surface; he must not assimilate a man like
Professor Dana to the components of an "ignorant mob"; he must not say
that things are beginning to be known which are not known at all; he
must not say that "slow and sulky acquiescence" has been given to that
which cannot yet boast of general acquiescence of any kind; he must
not suggest that a view which has been publicly advocated by the
Director of the Geological Survey and no less publicly discussed by
many other authoritative writers has been intentionally and
systematically ignored; he must not ascribe ill motives for a course
of action which is the only proper one; and finally, if any one but
myself were interested, I should say that he had better not waste his
time in raking up the errors of those whose lives have been occupied,
not in talking about science, but in toiling, sometimes with success
and sometimes with failure, to get some real work done.
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