METnOD OF DISCOVERY. 53 



that all these phenomena originated miraculously, or 

 in some way totally different from the ordinary course 

 of nature, and that therefore they conceive it to be 

 futile, not to say presumptuous, to attempt to inquire 

 into them. 



To such sincere and earnest persons, I would only 

 say, that a question of this kind is not to be shelved 

 upon theoretical or speculative grounds. You may 

 remember the story of the Sophist who demonstrated 

 to Diogenes in the most complete and satisfactory man- 

 ner that he could not walk ; that, in fact, all motion 

 was an impossibility ; and that Diogenes refuted him 

 by simply getting up and walking round his tub. So, 

 in the same way, the man of science replies to objec- 

 tions of this kind, by simply getting up and walking 

 onward, and showing what science has done and is 

 doing, — by pointing to that immense mass of facts 

 which have been ascertained and systematized under the 

 forms of the great doctrines of Morphology, of Develop- 

 ment, of Distribution, and the like. He sees an enor- 

 mous mass of facts and laws relating to organic beings, 

 which stand on the same good sound foundation as 

 every other natural law ; and, therefore, with this mass 

 of facts and laws before us, seeing that, as far as organic 

 matters have hitherto been accessible and studied, they 

 have shown themselves capable of yielding to scientific 

 investigation, we may accept this as proof that order 

 and law reign there as well as in the rest of nature ; 

 and the man of science says nothing to objectors of 

 this sort, but supposes that we can and shall walk to 

 the origin of organic nature, in the same way that we 

 have walked to a knowledge of the laws and principles 

 of the inorganic world. 



