254 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS 



of life, and a natural basis in organization for the operations 

 of the human mind, speak to them of fatalism and material- 

 ism. And, strange to say. those who every day give views 

 of physical cosmogony altogether discrepant in appearance 

 with that of Moses, apply hard names to my book for sug- 

 gesting an organic cosmogony in the same way, liable to in- 

 considerate odium. I must firmly protest against this mode 

 of meeting speculations regarding nature. The object of my 

 book, whatever may be said of the manner in which it is 

 treated, is purely scientific. The views which I give of the 

 history of organization stand exactly on the same ground upon 

 which the geological doctrines stood fifty years ago. I am 

 merely endeavouring to read aright another chapter of the 

 mystic book which God has placed under the attention of his 

 creatures. . . The absence of all liberality in my re- 

 viewers is striking, and especially so in those whose geologi- 

 cal doctrines have exposed them to similar misconstruction. 

 If the men newly emerged from the odium which was thrown 

 upon Newton's theory of the planetary motions had rushed 

 forward to turn that odium upon the patrons of the dawning 

 science of Geology, they would have been prefiguring the con- 

 duct of several of my critics, themselves hardly escaped from 

 the rude hands of the narrow-minded, yet eager to join that 

 rabble against a new and equally unfriended stranger, as if 

 such were the best means of purchasing impunity for them- 

 selves. I trust that a little time will enable the public to pe- 

 netrate this policy." 



Now, there is one very important point to which the author 

 of this complaint does not seem to have adverted. The as- 

 tronomer founded his belief in the mobility of the earth and 

 the immobility of the sun, not on a mere dream-like hypo- 

 thesis, founded on nothing, but on a wide and solid base of 

 pure induction. Galileo was no mere dreamer ; — he was a 

 discoverer of great truths, and a profound reasoner regarding 



