Edward Bagnall Poulton

“ And this bright hope is encouraged by the knowledge that the public school spirit is in no way dependent on the learning of classics, but is shared in equal measure by those who study science.
We look to the public schools more than to any other influence to rescue us from a dangerous condition; for it is dangerous that a country which depends on science for its existence and prosperity should be ruled by politicians and civil servants with hardly an exception utterly ignorant of science. ”

“ How dull and how stupid can only be realized when we think of the acts that are acclaimed by our Foreign Office as 'valuable service'. A chairman or managing director of a company that employed an engine-driver and used its rolling-stock to carry so many kilogrammes of foreign monarch or foreign President would be deemed to have done 'valuable service'! And some people speak of science as tending towards a low and material outlook! ”

“ It is of much interest to attempt to set forth some of the main characteristics of the man who did so much for modern science, and in so large a measure moulded the form of modern thought. Although his ill-health prevented Darwin, except on rare occasions, from attending scientific and social meetings, and thus from meeting and knowing the great body of scientific and intellectual workers of his time, probably no man has ever inspired a wider and deeper personal interest and affection. ”

“ Its only chance of survival is to avoid experience of foes altogether; experience is the most dangerous thing in the world for an edible insect. This becomes still more obvious when we remember that failure or success is almost always determined long after the cocoon is made. The caterpillar, perhaps, spins the cocoon in autumn, but the real stress of competition will come in winter, when insect-eating animals are pressed hard with hunger, and search high and low for food. But the caterpillar is by this time a chrysalis, and of course has no opportunity of improving the cocoon. ”

“ But the sting in these words is only for the expert witness, by no means for the barrister whose position is understood by every one. We must recognize to the full that, in its professional sphere, the work of the advocate is essential to the community, and that the experience of ages has failed to discover any other way of doing it. But in the quite different sphere of legislation, and especially government, too much of the advocate's spirit is dangerous: in a terrible crisis when law inevitably shrinks into the background, it is disastrous. ”

“ But it is, I repeat, a principal feature of his life, that for nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of ordinary men, and that thus his life was one long struggle against the weariness and the strain of sickness. And this cannot be told without speaking of the one condition which enabled him to bear the strain and fight out the struggle to the end.”
Charles Darwin was honoured by the chief societies of the civilized world. ”

“ The impression produced upon a people that is told very little, is that our lawyer-politicians have been more concerned to keep friendly with neutral nations, and especially America, than to beat Germany. If we had from the very first stopped, not only cotton, fats, and oils for making ammunition, but everything from entering Germany and Austria through any channel, would the grievance against us compare with America's grievance against Germany? ”

“ We are thrown back, then, solely upon natural selection, which acts on the nervous system of the caterpillar, and thus compels it to make the cocoon in a certain way. In other words, those caterpillars which are impelled by their nervous system to make ill-formed conspicuous cocoons have no chance of living, and, in future stages, producing offspring. Hence the selection caused by the keen sight of foes first raises, and then maintains at a high level, the standard of cocoon-making. ”

“ In addition to the personal qualities and powers of Charles Darwin, there were other contributing causes without which the world could never have reaped the benefit of his genius. It is evident that Darwin’s health could barely have endured the strain of working for a living, and that nothing would have been left over for his researches. ”

“ It is indeed a revelation of the dangers to which we are brought by the neglect of science when in the most terrible crisis of our national history 'success or failure in arresting the supply of materials for making German explosives depends upon the patriotism of a firm willing to sacrifice their profits for the sake of national gain, instead of upon a Government issuing resolute orders based upon expert knowledge'. ”

“ This latter, probably his first attempt to expound natural selection, cannot be surpassed as a clear statement of the theory. Darwin explained at the outset, what he insisted on elsewhere, that the facts of adaptation or contrivance in nature are the real difficulty to be explained by a theory of evolution, the stumbling-block of every previous suggestion. ”

“ It is important to remember too that a scientific training brings other benefits besides the knowledge of science, benefits we terribly need to-day. It is not mere accident that has made all-round efficiency and competence, in this time of stress, so conspicuous in those departments which by their very nature are founded on science and must always keep in touch with science—the Navy and the Medical Service. ”

“ And when the war is profoundly and, as experts maintain, disastrously influenced by vital decisions put into operation without explanation and as silently withdrawn, opinions that are helpful neither to the Government nor the country are bound to be expressed. When an Englishman ascertains that, by Article 28 of the Declaration of London, all kinds of material necessary for the conduct of war may not be made contraband, he is left hesitating between flabby sentimentalism and concealed German influence. ”

“ They hold, with Darwin and Wallace, that although variation provides the essential material, natural selection, from its accumulative power, is of such paramount importance that it may be said to create new species as truly as a man may be said to make a building out of the material provided by stones of various shapes, a metaphor suggested and elaborated by Darwin, and forming the concluding sentences of The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. ”

“ But this and every other subject which might be chosen by a naturalist in ordinary years seemed to shrink away under the great and overshadowing menace of the war. In this struggle science has played, and will continue to play, a tremendous part. It seemed appropriate, therefore, that a scientific man should take as his subject the bearing of science upon the great war, all the more so when he is convinced that we must employ science a great deal more than we have done in order to achieve success. ”

“ In the preparation for Darwin Sir Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology played an important part, accustoming men’s minds to the vast changes brought about by natural processes, and leading them, by its lucid and temperate discussion of Lamarck’s and other views, to reflect upon evolution. ”

“ The appliances that have come in since 1870—smokeless powder, immense precision and range—are on the whole against the peculiar genius of the British soldier. He can learn to use these advantages, indeed to use them splendidly; but they are not natural to him like the weapons of old, when men were directed to reserve their fire until they could see the whites of the enemy's eyes, or were even advised, as in Cromwell's day, not to pull the trigger until they could press the pistol against the enemy's body. ”

“ Untold thousands of lives and an ever-growing volume of human misery are a terrible punishment for the neglect of science.
I come now to an entirely different aspect of the war, but one in which the Government requires the aid of science just as fully as in the provision of ammunition. It is possible that military experts are mistaken in thinking that the final decision can be reached by fighting. ”

“ All through the period a varying proportion of naturalists, probably larger now than at any other time, has followed the founders of the theory, and has sought the motive-cause of evolution in “the accumulative power of natural selection,” which Darwin, as his first public statement indicates, looked upon “as by far the most important element in the production of new forms.” ”

“ We are kept very much in the dark and can only surmise. The impression is gained that the Board of Trade is instructed to encourage exports in every possible way, and finds it much easier to succeed when the supply of German needs is not looked at too critically. So we have the War Office and the Admiralty trying to fight Germany while the Board of Trade supplies Germany through neutrals, and the Foreign Office takes care that the Navy does not exert too strong a pressure on her. Modern civilization has been described as 'anarchy plus the policeman'. ”

“ Then, instead of a war fought out to the bitter end in a series of decisive battles, we shall have as a substitute a long period of continually increasing strain upon the resources of the combatants. The war, instead of being a hand-to-hand contest in which the combatants measure their physical and moral superiority, will become a kind of stalemate, in which neither army being able to get at the other, both armies will be maintained in opposition to each other, threatening each other, but never being able to deliver a final and decisive attack. ”