52 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES a 
of the justice of scientific conclusions, in all that 
relates to the origin of things, and, among them, 
of species. In this nineteenth century, as_ 
dawn of modern physical science, the the cosm. 
of the semi-barbarous ‘Hebrew_is the in 
the philosopher ; and the opprobrium. of the ortho 
“dox. Who shall number the patient and earnest 
seekers after truth, from the days of Galileo until 
now, whose lives have been embittered and their 
good name blasted by the mistaken zeal of Biblio- 
laters? Who shall count the host of weaker men. 
whose sense of truth has be en destro troyed in the effort 
to harmonise impossibilities—whose life has be life has bec 
“wasted_i in_ the attempt to force the generous-new 
wine of Science into the old bottles of Judaism,com- 
pelled by the outcry of the same strong party ? . 
It is true that if philosophers have suffered, their 
cause has been amply avenged. Extinguished 
_ theologians lie about the otaille of every science.as 
_ the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules ; and 
history records that whenever science and ortho- 
doxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been 
| forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed 
if not annihilated ; scotched, if not slain. But 
orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. 
It learns not, neither can it forget; and though, 
at present, bewildered and afraid to move, it is as 
willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of 
Genesis. contains the beginning and the end of 
sound science; and to visit, with such petty 
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