16 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



pecially when the conclusions arrived at point to 

 some very distinct advance in Natural Knowledge. 

 What is the object of the Society but to advance 

 Natural Knowledge? And how can it expect to 

 do this if it tries to stifle or ignore that which 

 is adverse to generally accepted beliefs? 1 



The same kind of thing was done by the Society 

 in the case of one of Joule's papers on " The 

 Mechanical Equivalent of Heat," though his in- 

 vestigation soon became one of the most im- 

 portant contributions to the doctrine of " The 

 Correlation of the Physical Forces," enunciated 

 bv Mr. Justice Grove in 1842. 



*/ 



So far as my own case is concerned, I have little 

 doubt that, when I ventured to submit this paper 

 to the Society, I did not adequately appreciate 

 the amount of reluctance there would be to re- 

 ceive any new knowledge from one whose views 

 were known to be so very unorthodox especially 



1 The action of the Society is all the more surprising seeing 

 that on one of the first pages of every volume of the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions the following statement is to be found in 

 reference to the selection, by the Committee, of papers for pub- 

 lication therein : " And the grounds of their choice are, and 

 will continue to be, the importance and singularity of the sub- 

 jects, or the advantageous manner of treating them, without 

 pretending to answer for the certainty of the facts, or propriety 

 of the reasoning contained in the several papers, which must 

 still rest on the credit or judgment of their respective authors." 



