Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/335

Rh Great Being Humanity. After showing why I conceive "veneration and gratitude" are not due to Humanity, I supposed an opponent to exclaim (putting the passage within quotation-marks), "But surely 'veneration and gratitude' are due somewhere," since civilized society with all its products "must be credited to some agency or other." [This apostrophe, imagined as coming from a disciple of Comte, Mr. Harrison, on p. 373, actually represents as made in my own person!] To this apostrophe I have replied (p. 22) that "if 'veneration and gratitude' are due at all, they are due to that Ultimate Cause from which Humanity, individually and as a whole, in common with all other things has proceeded." Whereupon Mr. Harrison changes my hypothetical statement into an actual statement. He drops the "if," and represents me as positively affirming that "veneration and gratitude" are due somewhere: saying that Mr. Spencer "lavishes his veneration and gratitude,' called out by the sum of human civilization, upon his Unknowable and Inconceivable Postulate" (p. 373). I should have thought that even the most ordinary reader, much more Mr, Harrison, would have seen that the argument is entirely an argument ad hominem. I deliberately and carefully guarded myself by the "if" against the ascription to me of any opinion, one way or the other: being perfectly conscious that much is to be said for and against. The optimist will unhesitatingly affirm that veneration and gratitude are due; while by the pessimist it will be contended that they are not due. One who dwells exclusively on what Emerson calls "the saccharine" principle in things, as illustrated for example in the adaptation of living beings to their conditions—the becoming callous to pains that have to be borne, and the acquirement of liking for labors that are necessary—may think there are good reasons for veneration and gratitude. Contrariwise, these sentiments may be thought inappropriate by one who contemplates the fact that there are some thirty species of parasites which prey upon man, possessing elaborate appliances for maintaining their hold on or within his body, and having enormous degrees of fertility proportionate to the small individual chances their germs have of getting into him and torturing him. Either view may be supported by masses of evidence; and knowing this I studiously avoided complicating the issue by taking either side. As any one may see who refers back, my sole purpose was that of showing the absurdity of thinking that "veneration and gratitude" are due to the product and not to the producer. Yet Mr. Harrison, having changed my proposition "if they are due, etc.," into the proposition "they are due, etc.," laughs over the contradictions in my views which he deduces, and to which he time after time recurs, commenting on my "astonishing perversity."

In this division of Mr. Harrison's article occur five other cases in which, after his manner, propositions are made to appear untenable or ludicrous; though any one who refers to them as expressed by me will