360 THE CAUSES OF THE xI 
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. The man of science says - 
nothing to objectors of this sort, but supposes — 
that we can and shall walk to a knowledge of 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. 
But there are objectors who say the same from 
ignorance and ill-will. To such I would reply 
that the objection comes ill from them, and that 
the real presumption, | may almost say the real 
blasphemy, in this matter, is in the attempt to 
limit that inquiry into the causes of phenomena, 
which is the source of all human blessings, and — 
from which has sprung all human prosperity and 
progress ; for, after all, we can accomplish com- 
paratively little; the limited range of our own — 
faculties bounds us on every side,—the field of © 
our powers of observation is small enough, and — 
he who endeavours to narrow the sphere of our 
inquiries is only pursuing a course that is likely 
to produce the greatest harm to his fellow- 
men. 
But. now, assuming, as we all do, I hope, that 
these phenomena are properly accessible to inquiry 
and setting out upon our search into the causes” 
of the pienamens of organic nature, or at any 
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