II THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 25 



science, and having spent many years in gathering 

 and sifting materials for his present work, the 

 store of accurately registered facts upon which the 

 author of the " Origin of Species " is able to draw 

 at will is prodigious. 



But this very superabundance of matter must 

 have been embarrassing to a writer who, for the 

 present, can only put forward an abstract of his 

 views ; and thence it arises, perhaps, that notwith- 

 standing the clearness of the style, those who 

 attempt fairly to digest the book find much of it 

 a sort of intellectual pemmican a mass of facts 

 crushed and pounded into shape, rather than held 

 together by the ordinary medium of an obvious 

 logical bond; due attention will, without doubt, 

 discover this bond, but it is often hard to find. 



Again, from sheer want of room, much has to 

 be taken for granted which might readily enough 

 be proved ; and hence, while the adept, who can 

 supply the missing links in the evidence from his 

 own knowledge, discovers fresh proof of the singu- 

 lar thoroughness with which all difficulties have 

 been considered and all unjustifiable suppositions 

 avoided, at every reperusal of Mr. Darwin's preg- 

 nant paragraphs, the novice in biology is apt to 

 complain of the frequency of what he fancies is 

 gratuitous assumption. 



Thus while it may be doubted if, for some years, 

 any one is likely to be competent to pronounce 

 judgment on all the issues raised by Mr. Darwin, 



