POETRY.
♦ A DIDACTIC ODE. (To be sung to the Tune of "Guy Faux") [From the Pall Mall Gazette.'] Our is a wise and earnest age, An age of thought and science, Sir ; To error, igno-ance, and bliss We fairly bid defiance, Sir. " Professors" everywhere abound, Both in and out of colleges, And all agog to cram our nobs With " isms" and with " ologies. Bow, wow, wow, Tol de riddle, tol de riddle, Bow, wow wow. Philosophy, as you're aware, Material and mental, Sir, At one extreme is " Positive," At t'other " Transcendental," Sir, And each of us who in these days Would speculate "en regie," If he can't run the rig with Comte, Must take tho tip from Hegel. Bow, wow, wow, &c. The fundamental problem which, Debated now for ages, Sir, Is still attacked and still unsolved By all our modern sages, Sir, Is, if an effort I may make A simple form to throw it in, Just what we know, and why we know, And what's the way we know it in. Bow, wow, wow, &c. We can't assume (so Comte affirms) A first or final cause, Sir, Phenomena are all we know, Their order and their laws, Sir ; While Hegel's modest formula A single line to sum in, Is " nothing is and nothing's not, But everything's becomin'." Bow, wow, wow, &c " Development" is all the go, Of course with Herbert Spencer, Who cares a little more than Comte About the " why " and "whence," Sir, Appearances, he seems to think, Do not exhaust totality, But indicate that underneath There's some " Unknown Reality." Bow, wow, wow, &c. And Darwin, too, who leads the throng " In vulgum voces spargere," Maintains Humanity is nought Except a big menagerie, The progeny of tailless apes, Sharp-eared but puggy-nosed, Sir, Who nightly climbed their "family treeß," And on the top reposed, Sir, Bow, wow, wow, &c. There's Carlyle, on the other hand, Whose first and last concern it is To preach up the " immensities " And muse on the "eternities;" But if one credits what one hears, The gist of all his brag is, Sir, That " Krbwiirst," rightly understood, Is transcendental " Haggis," Sir. Bow, wow, wow, , Imaginative sparks, you know, Electric currents kindle, Sir, On Alpine heights or at Belfast, Within the brain of Tyndall, Sir; His late address, some people hold, Is flowery, vague, and vapoury, And represents the " classic nude " When stripped of all its " Draper-"y. Bow, wow, wow, &c. Professor Huxley has essayed To bridge across the chasm, Sir, Twixt matter dead and matter quick By means of "protoplasm," Sir, And to his doctrine now subjoins The further " grand attraction " That " consciousness " in man and brute Is simply "reflex action." Bow, wow, wow, &c. Then Stanley Jevons will contend In words stout and emphatical The proper mode to treat all things Is purely mathematical ; Since we as individual men, Commuuities, and nation 1 ?, Sir, Are clearly angles, lines, and square?, Cubes, circles, and equations, Sir. Bow, wow, wow, &c. George Henry Lewes, I'm informed, Had " gone off quite hysterical" About that feeble, foolish thing, The "theory Mctempirical;" And only found relief, 'tis said,J From nervous throes and spasms, Sir, By banging straight at Huxley's head A brace of brand-new " plasms," Sir. Bow, wow, wow, &c. Such are the philosophic views I've ventured now to versify, And, if I may invent the term, In some degree to " ter.«ify," Among them all, I'm bold to say, Fair room for choice you'll find, Sir, And if you don't, why then you won't, And I for one shan't mind, Sir, Bow, wow, wow, &c.
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