On the study of zoology and its place in medical and scientific education : being the introductory lecture delivered to the Natural History Class, School of Medicine, Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, Tuesday, November 2, 1875 / by Andrew Wilson, Ph.D.

  • Wilson, Andrew, Ph.D.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the study of zoology and its place in medical and scientific education : being the introductory lecture delivered to the Natural History Class, School of Medicine, Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh, Tuesday, November 2, 1875 / by Andrew Wilson, Ph.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    17/30 (page 17)
    not living matter.* I do not interfere with Mr. Huxley's belief as an honest expression of opinion, but I quote his words and practice to strengthen my demand that evolu- tionists should reasonably extend to others the same privilege of belief, and of exhibiting with themselves an equal amount of philosophical faith. I plead strongly for toleration on both sides of this great controversy; and if acts of philo- sophical faith lead us to give our assent to other than evolutionary explanations of the origin of this world and its living tenants, we should not be taunted, as with an argumen- tum ad invidiam, that we are much to be pitied on account of our faith. If the roll of the drum ecclesiastic has sometimes been a little deafening, the tones of what we may call the trombone biological have on many occasions been of no less of defiant and unreasonable kind. Tyndall himself remarks {Fortnightly Review, November 1875), that in the contemplation of pro- babilities the thoughtful mind is forced to take a side. And in the taking of a side, inherent inexplicable belief and innate tendencies of thought count for much with most, if not with all minds. If, therefore, as I have shown, the privilege and reasonable nature of such belief be asserted from the one side, it needs no exercise of apologetics to excuse its adoption by the other. The doctrines of Evolu- tion, Special Creation, and their many modifications, present us at their best with but a choice of probabilities ; and in the exercise of this choice the psychical element of belief—too little considered in matters controversial—forms and moulds, in a powerful degree, the after-conceptions of the thinker. Thus, to many, adherence to Evolution, or on the other hand to its opposing theories, may be a necessity as following on the exercise of an innate belief, the nature of which we are * Critiques and AdJressea, p. 239. B