But by far the most striking example of ignorance in his work, an example upon so astonishing a scale that one could hardly believe it even of popular “scientific” stuff, is to be found in Mr. Wells’s complete ignorance of the modern destructive criticism of Darwinian Natural Selection. He not only (as we shall see in a moment) has never heard of this European, English and American work—he actually denies its existence and imagines I have made it up!
Again, I have used the word “childish” of his attitude on more than one occasion.
Is the word “childish” too strong? I will give examples. In his fury against me he suggests that I cannot “count beyond zero,” and he admits, with a sneer, that I perhaps understand the meaning of the word “strata.”
He tries to make capital of my giving the name of the very eminent anthropologist, E. Boule, without putting “Monsieur” before it, and says that I “elevate Monsieur Boule to the eminence of ‘Boule.’” That is childish. All the world cites eminent men by their unsupported name. It is a sign of honour. For instance, that great authority, Sir Arthur Keith (whom Mr. Wells sets up to have read and followed), says “Boule.” Didn’t Mr. Wells know that?
He says that he uses the term “Roman” Catholic because it is the only one he knows with which to distinguish between the many kinds of Catholics. Whereas (and everybody knows it, including Mr. Wells in his more sober moments) the term is only used either because it is the legal and traditional word of English Protestantism, or, much more legitimately, to distinguish between us of the world-wide Roman Communion and those sincere men (many of whom I am proud to count my friends) who emphasise Catholic doctrine in the English Church and call themselves “Anglo-Catholics.” This wild protest, that there are any number of other Catholics—Scotto-Catholics, Americano-Catholics, Morisco-Catholics, Indo-Catholics, Mongolo-Catholics—is frankly ridiculous, and ridiculous after a fashion which it is legitimate to call “childish”: the mere explosion of a man in a passion.
Yet another example. Finding me to have overlooked a tiny misprint (“ai” for “ia”) in the printing of a proper name, he writes a whole page about it.
The proper adjective for absurdities of that kind is the adjective “childish.” I could give any number of other examples, but I think these are quite enough.
In point of fact, I only use the word “childish” rarely—I do not know how often in my whole book, but at a guess I should say not more than three times. But each time I am sure that it is well deserved. However, if he prefer a more dignified adjective, such as “immature” or “unstable” or “puerile,” or any other, I am quite willing to meet him, so long as he allows me to say that he only too often in his violence does write things which make him ridiculous from their lack of poise.
And what of the adjective “confused” or (for I am afraid I allowed myself that licence) “muddle-headed”? Well, I can give examples of that innumerable. For instance, he cannot conceive that I should call him unscientific, seeing that he was one of Huxley’s students. What on earth has that got to do with my accusation? If a man should call me a very poor Latin scholar (which I am—but then I do not write popular manuals on Latin poetry), would it be any reply to tell him that I had been as a boy at a school of which Cardinal Newman was the head, or as a young man that I had been at Balliol; or that among my intimate acquaintances whom I listen to fascinated upon classical themes were some of the greatest scholars of my time? Whether Mr. Wells is a scientific man or not must be decided, not by his having attended classes under Huxley, but by the use he has made of his reading; and it is easy to prove that that use has been deplorable.
Mr. Wells is unscientific because he does not survey the whole of evidence upon a point, and weigh it, and especially because he is perpetually putting forward hypothesis as fact—which may be called the very criterion of an unscientific temper; because he introduces mere fiction as an illustration of supposed fact (e.g. the nonsense about human sacrifice at Stonehenge) and the material for a magazine shocker as though it were history.