The moment the scientists leave the domain of particulars or positive facts, and attempt to induce from them a law, their induction is of no value. Take geology. The geologist finds in that small portion of the globe which he has examined certain facts, from which he concludes that the globe is millions and millions of ages old. Is his conclusion scientific? Not at all. If the globe was in the beginning in a certain state, and if the structural and other changes which are now going on have been going on at the same rate from the beginning—neither of which suppositions is provable—then the conclusion is valid; not otherwise. Sir Charles Lyell, if we recollect aright, calculated that, at the present rate, it must have taken at least a hundred and fifty thousand years to form the delta of the Mississippi. Officers of the United States army have calculated that a little over four thousand years would suffice.
So of the antiquity of man on the globe. The scientist finds what he takes to be human bones in a cave along with the bones of certain long since extinct species of animals, and concludes that man was contemporary with the said extinct species of animals; therefore man existed on the globe many, nobody can say how many, thousand years ago. But two things render the conclusion uncertain. It is not certain from the fact that their bones are found together that man and these animals were contemporary; and the date when these animals became extinct, if extinct they are, is not ascertained nor ascertainable. They have discovered traces in Switzerland of lacustrian habitations; but these prove nothing, because history itself mentions "the dwellers on the lakes," and the oldest history accepted by the scientists is not many thousand years old. Sir Charles Lyell finds, or supposes he finds, stone knives and axes, or what he takes to be stone knives and axes, deeply embedded in the earth in the valley of a river, though at some distance from its present bed; and thence concludes the presence of man on the earth for a period wholly irreconcilable with the received biblical chronology. But supposing the facts to be as alleged, they do not prove any thing, because we cannot say what changes by floods or other causes have taken place in the soil of the locality, even during the period of authentic history. Others conclude from the same facts that men were primitively savages, or ignorant of the use of iron. But the most they prove is that, at some unknown period, certain parts of Europe were inhabited by a people who used stone knives and axes; but whether because ignorant of iron, or because unable from their poverty or their distance from places where they were manufactured to procure similar iron utensils, they give us no information. Instances enough are recorded in history of the use of stone knives by a people who possessed knives made of iron. Because in our day some Indian tribes use bows and arrows, are we to conclude that fire-arms are unknown in our age of the world?
What the scientists offer as proof is seldom any proof at all. If an hypothesis they invent explains the known facts of a case, they assert it as proved, and therefore true. What fun would they not make of theologians and philosophers, if they reasoned as loosely as they do themselves? Before we can conclude an hypothesis is true because it explains the known facts in the case, we must prove, 1st, that there are and can be no facts in the case not known; and, 2d, that there is no other possible hypothesis on which they can be explained. We do not say the theories of the scientists with regard to the antiquity of the globe and of man on its surface, nor that any of the geological and astronomical hypotheses they set forth are absolutely false; we only say that their alleged facts and reasonings do not prove them. The few facts known might be placed in a very different light by the possibly unknown facts; and there are conceivable any number of other hypotheses which would equally well explain the facts that are known.
The book before us on Hereditary Genius admirably illustrates the insufficiency of the method and the defective logic of the scientists. Mr. Galton, its author, belongs to the school of which such men as Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Sir John Lubbock, and Professor Huxley are British chiefs, men who disdain to recognize a self-existent Creator, and who see no difficulty in supposing the universe self-evolved from nothing, or in tracing intelligence, will, generous affection, and heroic effort to the mechanical, chemical, and electrical arrangement and combination of the particles of brute matter. Mr. Galton has written his book, he says, p. 1, to show
"that a man's natural abilities are derived from inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and the physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses, gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing any thing else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race [breed] of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations."
Mr. Galton, with an air of the most perfect innocence in the world, places man in the category of plants and animals, and in principle simply reproduces for our instruction the Man-Plant, from which there is but a step to the Man-Machine of the cynical Lamettrie, the atheistical professor of mathematics in the university of Berlin, and friend of Frederick the Great. The attempt to prove it is a subtle attempt to prove, in the name of science, that the soul, if soul there be, is generated as well as the body, and that a man's natural abilities are derived through generation from his organization. The author from first to last gives no hint that his doctrine is at war with Christian theology, with the freedom of the human will, or man's moral responsibility for his conduct, or that it excludes all morality, all virtue, and all sin, and recognizes only physical good or evil. He would no doubt reply to this that science is science, facts are facts, and he is under no obligation to consider what theological doctrines they do or do not contradict; for nothing can be true that contradicts science or is opposed to facts. That is opposed to actual facts, or that contradicts real science, conceded; for one truth can never contradict another. But the author is bound to consider whether a theory or hypothesis which contradicts the deepest and most cherished beliefs of mankind in all ages and nations, and in which is the key to universal history, is really science, or really is sustained by facts. The presumption, as say the lawyers, is against it, and for its acceptance it requires the clearest and the most irrefragable proofs, and we are not sure that even any proofs would be enough to overcome the presumptions against it, founded as they are on reasons as strong and as conclusive as it is in any case possible for the human mind to have. The assertion that man's natural abilities originate in his organization, and therefore that we may obtain a peculiar breed of men, as we can obtain a peculiar breed of dogs or horses, is revolting to the deepest convictions and the holiest and most irrepressible instincts of every man, except a scientist, and certainly can be reasonably received only on evidence that excludes the possibility of a rational doubt.
Mr. Galton proves, or attempts to prove, his theory by what he no doubt calls an appeal to facts. He takes from a biographical dictionary the names of a few hundreds of men, chiefly Englishmen, during the last two centuries, who have been distinguished as statesmen, lawyers, judges, divines, authors, etc., and finds that in a great majority of cases, as far as is known, they have sprung from families of more than average ability, and, in some cases, from families which have had some one or more members distinguished for several consecutive generations. This is really all the proof Mr. Galton brings to prove his thesis; and if he has not adduced more, it is fair to conclude that it is because no more was to be had.
But the evidence is far from being conclusive. Even if it be true that the majority of eminent men spring from families more or less distinguished, it does not necessarily follow that they derive their eminent abilities by inheritance; for in those same families, born of the same parents, we find other members whose abilities are in no way remarkable, and in no sense above the common level. In a family of half a dozen or a dozen members one will be distinguished and rise to eminence, while the others will remain very ordinary people. Of the Bonaparte family no member approaches in genius the first Napoleon, except the present emperor of the French. Why these marked differences in the children of the same blood, the same breed, the same parents and ancestors? If Mr. Galton explains the inferiority of the five or the eleven by considerations external or independent of race or breed, why may not the superiority of the one be explained by causes alike independent of breed? Why are the natural abilities of my brothers inferior to mine, since we are all born of the same parents? If a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance from organization, why am I superior to them? Every day we meet occasion to ask similar questions. This fact proves that there are causes at work, on which man's eminence or want of eminence depends, of which Mr. Galton's theory takes no note, which escape the greatest scientists, and at best can be only conjectured. But conjecture is not science.
This is not all. As far as known, very eminent men have sprung from parents of very ordinary natural abilities, as of social position. The founders of dynasties and noble families have seldom had distinguished progenitors, and are usually not only the first but the greatest of their line. The present Sir Robert Peel cannot be named alongside of his really eminent father, nor the present Duke of Wellington be compared with his father, the Iron Duke. There is no greater name in history than that of St. Augustine, the eminent father and doctor of the church, a man beside whom in genius and depth, and greatness of mind as well as tenderness of heart, your Platos and Aristotles appear like men of only ordinary stature; yet, though his mother was eminent for her sanctity, his parents do not appear to have been gifted with any extraordinary mental power. Instances are not rare, especially among the saints, of great men who have, so to speak, sprung from nothing. Among the popes we may mention Sixtus Quintus, and Hildebrand, St. Gregory VII.; and among eminent churchmen we may mention St. Thomas of Canterbury, Cardinal Ximenes, and Cardinal Wolsey. The greatest and most gifted of our own statesmen have sprung from undistinguished parents, as Washington, the elder Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Webster, Calhoun. Who dares pretend that every saint has had a saint for a father or mother; that every eminent theologian or philosopher has had any eminent theologian or philosopher for his father; or that every eminent artist, whether in painting, architecture, sculpture, or music, has been the son or grandson of an eminent artist?