REFERENCE TO DARWIN. 7 



confused heads are often most thoroughly convinced of 

 their own pre-eminence — on no subject do we so fre- 

 quently hear superficial opinions, mostly condemnatory, 

 and all evincing the grossest ignorance. 



I wish then to render the reader able to survey 

 the whole ramified and complicated problem of the 

 doctrine of Descent, and its foundation by Darwin, and 

 to enable him to understand its cardinal points. But 

 we must first dispose of a preliminary question of uni- 

 versal importance and special significance, which is 

 frequently ignored by philosophical and theological 

 opponents, that is, the question of the limits of the in- 

 vestigation of nature. For if it were an established prin- 

 ciple that the mystery of the living is different from 

 that of the non-living, that the former might be disclosed, 

 but that the latter is shrouded in a veil which never can 

 be raised, as is even now so frequently asserted, then, 

 indeed, all research directed towards the comprehension 

 of life would be utterly vain and hopeless. 



But if the possibility of investigating life and its origin 

 be not opposed by any a priori scruples, still more, if 

 the limits of investigation and knowledge, which un- 

 doubtedly exist, are no other for animate nature than 

 for the inanimate world of matter, we may venture to 

 approach our task. This will be most adequately effected 

 by making ourselves somewhat familiar with the object 

 of the doctrine of Descent, restricting ourselves, however, 

 to the animal world. If I say then that we must obtain a 

 foundation for the theory of derivation or descent, for the 

 doctrine of the gradual and direct development of the 

 higher and now-existing organisms from lower ancestral 

 forms — in short, for the doctrine of the continuity of 



