In Defense of the Indefensible

IN DEFENSE OF THE INDEFENSIBLE JOHN L. DUSSEAU* Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. [King Henry VI, pt. 2] Extreme pedantry, especially in an exegetical role, can be valuable; but it is also puffed up and readily outraged. The archetype of all clerical, fastidious savants is recalled in verse: My name is Benjamin Jowett. I am the Master of Balliol College. Whatever is known I know it. Whatever I don't isn't knowledge. Jowett was, of course, a lion in his day; and in his day an especially enterprising Oxford guide was wont to bait the lion in his lair: "This, ladies and gentlemen, is Balliol College, one of the very holdest hin the huniversity, and famous for the herudition of hits scholars. The 'ead of Balliol College is the celebrated Professor Benjamin Jowett, Regius Professor of Greek. Those are ProfessorJowett's study windows and there" (here the scoundrel would take up a handful of gravel and throw it against the panes, bringingJowett livid with fury to the window) "ladies and gentlemen, is Professor Benjamin Jowett 'imself."1 In a recent issue of the Saturday Review, Ashley Montagu reviews favorably a book called Origins, by Richard E. Leakey and Roger Lewin. In his review Montagu recalls the charming story of a cleric who informed his wife that the horrid Professor Huxley had declared that man is descended from the apes; and she responded to this intelligence vigorously : "My dear! Descended from the apes! Do let us hope it is not true; but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known." Farther along in the review Montagu says: If the authors of Origins can be accused of categorizing a discovery before enough evidence has been accumulated to properly do so, it should also be said ?Address: 14 Chamond, Arbordeau, Devon, Pennsylvania 19333. 'Author's obligatory footnote: At least this is how W. S. Walsh remembered it in 1893 in his estimable Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities.© 1979 by The University of Chicago. 0031-5982/79/2204-0064$01.00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine ¦ Summer 1979 | 519 that they have been careless of the repute of a notable man they refer to as "a Dr. John Draper," who was present at the Huxley-Wilberforce debate. Dr. John William Draper (1811-1 882) was a distinguished chemist, physiologist, historian, and pioneer in spectrum analysis and photography. His Intellectual Development of Europe (1862) and History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874) are classics and have had a tremendous influence on the intellectual development of many prominent men and women. To call one of the makers of the modern world "a Dr. John Draper" without further identification is careless, at the very least. One senses Jowett glowering in the background of this commentary. The translator and annotator of Plato would no doubt have been his customary livid over Origins anyway, for the idea of endowment for research was anathematous to the cantankerous scholar. "Research!" the Master exclaimed to Logan Pearsall Smith. "Research! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved and will never achieve any results of the slightest value." Nevertheless, I should like to defend Leakey and Lewin against Montagu's charge on the ground of what is "generally known." In his Early Years, Bertrand Russell tells of his meeting Charles Sanger at Cambridge—"I said: ? see you have Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe, which I think a very good book.' He said: 'You are the first person I ever met who has ever heard of it!' " This is objective defense, for I know neither the authors nor their critic and hence assume them all to be fellows of impeccable probity. There is, though, a personal factor in my argument, for what Ashley Montagu is attacking is not simply the scholarly competence of two anthropologists but my own lamentable habits of study and writing and, I suspect, those of many writers far more able and consequential than myself. The plea I enter is that the writing practices ofmost ofus are such that we are always blundering into "a Mr.John Draper" when we should have said "the distinguished chemist and pioneer...