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Updated: May 12, 2025
In a debate upon the development hypothesis, lately narrated to me by a friend, one of the disputants was described as arguing that as, in all our experience, we know no such phenomenon as transmutation of species, it is unphilosophical to assume that transmutation of species ever takes place.
There is little chance of making due amends in the superstructure of a theory for the want of sufficient breadth in its foundations. It is unphilosophical to construct a science out of a few of the agencies by which the phenomena are determined, and leave the rest to the routine of practice or the sagacity of conjecture.
Under these circumstances I think it is unphilosophical, to say the least of it, to speak of the negroes as a race whose unfragrance is heaven-ordained, and the result of special organisation. I must tell you that I have been delighted, surprised, and the very least perplexed, by the sudden petition on the part of our young waiter, Aleck, that I will teach him to read.
"Well, I don't know," said Elmore, with the pique of a man who does not care to be quite trampled under foot. "I don't see that the theory is so very unphilosophical." "Oh, not at all!" mocked his wife. "It's philosophical to the last degree. Be as philosophical as you please, Owen; I shall love you still the same."
While this is the case, to describe superhuman beings in the language, and to attribute to them the actions, of humanity may be grotesque, unphilosophical, inconsistent; but it will be the only mode of working upon the feelings of men, and, therefore, the only mode suited for poetry. Shakspeare understood this well, as he understood everything that belonged to his art.
This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination. Provided we agree about the thing, it is needless to dispute about the terms.
And it is to a half-conscious sense of the powers that must have been at work that a great part of the influence of mountain scenery is due. Geologists tell us that a theory of catastrophes is unphilosophical; but, whatever may be the scientific truth, our minds are impressed as though we were witnessing the results of some incredible convulsion.
Mean while it may not be amiss to observe from these definitions of natural and unnatural, that nothing can be more unphilosophical than those systems, which assert, that virtue is the same with what is natural, and vice with what is unnatural.
Yet no thought could be more unphilosophical than this. Amongst these there are numberless eddies, which, perhaps, have tended to fill our minds with the idea of irregularity and confusion; but which, nevertheless, as well as the grand currents themselves, are subject to law, and are utterly devoid of caprice. In regard to these matters there is much about which we are still in ignorance.
For people who believe in a hereafter, and choose to contemplate a doubtful future, adorned with flames and largely peopled with devils, I can imagine death to have its unpleasant side; but I look upon all such notions as unphilosophical in the extreme. And now, Monsieur, I think I could sleep a little. By-and-by, when Madelon awakes, I should like to see her."
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