Critiques and Addresses | Page 2

presentation of Mr. Spencer's views differs from his own most recent version of them. As the passage cited above shows. I have carefully defined the sense in which I use the terms which I employ, and, therefore, I am not greatly concerned to defend the abstract appropriateness of the terms themselves. And when Mr. Spencer maintains the only proper functions of Government to be those which are comprehensible under the description of "Negatively regulative control," I may suggest that the difference between such "Negative Administration" and "Administrative Nihilism," in the sense defined by me, is not easily discernible.
Having, as I hope, relieved myself from the suspicion of having misunderstood or misrepresented Mr. Spencer's views, I might, if I could forget that I am writing a preface, proceed to the discussion of the parallel which he elaborates, with much knowledge and power, between the physiological and the social organisms. But this is not the place for a controversy involving so many technicalities, and I content myself with one remark, namely, that the whole course of modern physiological discovery tends to show, with more and more clearness, that the vascular system, or apparatus for distributing commodities in the animal organism, is eminently under the control of the cerebro-spinal nervous centres--a fact which, unless I am again mistaken, is contrary to one of Mr. Spencer's fundamental assumptions. In the animal organism, Government does meddle with trade, and even goes so far as to tamper a good deal with the currency.
In the same number of the Fortnightly Review as that which contains Mr. Spencer's essay, Miss Helen Taylor assails me--though, I am bound to admit, more in sorrow than in anger--for what she terms, my "New Attack on Toleration." It is I, this time, who may complain of misinterpretation, if the greater part of Miss Taylor's article (with which I entirely sympathise) is supposed to be applicable to my "intolerance." Let us have full-toleration, by all means, upon all questions in which there is room for doubt, or which cannot be distinctly proved to affect the welfare of mankind. But when Miss Taylor has shown what basis exists for criminal legislation, except the clear right of mankind not to tolerate that which is demonstrably contrary to the welfare of society, I will admit that such demonstration ought only to be believed in by the "curates and old women" to whom she refers. Recent events have not weakened the conviction I expressed in a much-abused speech at the London School Board, that Ultramontanism is demonstrably the enemy of society; and must be met with resistance, merely passive if possible, but active if necessary, by "the whole power of the State."
Next in order, it seems proper that I should briefly refer to my friend Mr. Mivart's onslaught upon my criticism of Mr. Darwin's critics, himself among the number, which will be found in this volume. In "Evolution and its Consequences"[1] I am accused of misrepresentation, misquotation, misunderstanding, and numerous other negative and positive literary and scientific sins; and much subtle ingenuity is expended by Mr. Mivart in attempting to extricate himself from the position in which my exposition of the real opinions of Father Suarez has placed him. So much more, in fact, has Mr. Mivart's ingenuity impressed me than any other feature of his reply, that I shall take the liberty of re-stating the main issue between us; and, for the present, leaving that issue alone to the judgment of the public.
[Footnote 1: Contemporary Review, January 1872.]
In his book on the "Genesis of Species" Mr. Mivart, after discussing the opinions of sundry Catholic writers of authority, among whom he especially includes St. Augustin, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Jesuit Suarez, proceeds to say: "It is then evident that ancient and most venerable theological authorities distinctly assert derivative creation, and thus their teachings harmonize with all that modern science can possibly require."[1] By the "derivative creation" of organic forms, Mr. Mivart understands, "that God created them by conferring on the material world the power to evolve them under suitable conditions."
[Footnote 1: Bunsen's "Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History," vol. i.p. 349. 1854.]
On the contrary, I proved by evidence, which Mr. Mivart does not venture to impugn, that Suarez, in his "Tractatus de Opere sex Dierum," expressly rejects St. Augustin's and St. Thomas' views; that he vehemently advocates the literal interpretation of the account of the creation given in the Book of Genesis; and that he treats with utter scorn the notion that the Almighty could have used the language of that Book, unless He meant it to be taken literally.
Mr. Mivart, therefore, either has read Suarez and has totally misrepresented him--a hypothesis which, I hope I need hardly say, I do not for a moment entertain: or, he has got his information at second hand,