[On the next day (May 27) appeared a reply from Lord Shaftesbury, in which his entire good faith is equally conspicuous with his misapprehension of the subject.
LORD SHAFTESBURY'S REPLY.
The letter from Professor Huxley in the "Times" of this morning demands an immediate reply.
The object that I supposed the learned professor had in view was gathered from the prefaces to the several editions of his work on "Elementary Physiology."
The preface to the first edition states that "the following lessons in elementary physiology are, primarily, intended to serve the purpose of a text-book for teachers and learners in boys' and girls' schools."
It was published, therefore, as a manual for the young, as well as the old.
Now, any reader of the preface to the first edition would have come to the conclusion that teachers and learners could acquire something solid, and worth having, from the text-book before them. But the preface to the second edition nearly destroys that expectation. Here is the passage:—"It will be well for those who attempt to study elementary physiology to bear in mind the important truth that the knowledge of science which is attainable by mere reading, though infinitely better than ignorance, is knowledge of a very different kind from that which arises from direct contact with fact."
"Direct contact with fact!" What can that mean (so, at least, very many ask) but a declaration, on high authority, to teachers and learners that vivisection alone can give them any real and effective instruction?
But the subsequent passage is still stronger, for it states "that the worth of the pursuit of science, as an intellectual discipline, is almost lost by those who only seek it in books."
Is not language like this calculated to touch the zeal and vanity of teachers and learners at the very quick, and urge them to improve their minds and stand well in the eyes of the profession and the public by positive progress in experimental physiology? Ordinary readers, most people would think, could come to no other conclusion.