24 DECEMBER 1898, Page 16

[TO THE EDITOR Or TEE" SPECTATOR."[

SIR,—The writer of the article on "The Dogmatism of Science" in to-day's Spectator is under a strange misappre- hension when he states that "so final, so certain was the zoological classification of envier regarded, that at Cambridge the Chair of Zoology was founded to teach that science on the lines of Cuvier's classification,—a matter of embarrassment to the professor who knows that in important particulars Cuvier's system has been largely modified." Now, the occupant of the Chair, to which I had the honour of being elected on its foundation, is governed by certain Regulations, which may be read in any edition of the Ordinances of the University. These Regulations were first set forth in the Report, dated June 12th, 1865, of a Syndicate specially ap- pointed "to consider the best mode of providing for the teaching of Anatomy and Zoology in the University," which Report was approved by Grace of the Senate on February 8th, 1866. A copy of the original, containing the Regulations, is now before me, and there is not in the whole of it a word about Cnvier or Cuvier's classification, so that the "embar- rassment" attributed to me has no existence. The dog- inatiem of science may be a dreadful thing, but what about the dogmatism of ignorance or, shall I say, imagination