IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 361 



methods. As a rule, the man who does this 

 pushes his idea, or his method, too far ; or, if he 

 does not, his school is sure to do so ; and those 

 who follow have to reduce his work to its proper 

 value, and assign it its place in the whole. Not 

 unfrequently, they, in their turn, overdo the 

 critical process, and, in trying to eliminate error, 

 throw away truth. 



Thus, as I said, Linnaeus, Buffon, Cuvier, 

 Lamarck, really " set forth the results " of a 

 developing science, although they often heartily 

 contradict one another. Notwithstanding this 

 circumstance, modern classificatory method and 

 nomenclature have largely grown out of the work 

 of Linnaeus ; the modern conception of biology, as 

 a science, and of its relation to climatology, geo- 

 graphy, and geology, are, as largely, rooted in the 

 results of the labours of Buffon ; comparative 

 anatomy and palaeontology owe a vast debt to 

 Cuvier's results ; while invertebrate zoology and 

 the revival of the idea of evolution are intimately 

 dependent on the results of the work of Lamarck. 

 In other words, the main results of biology up to 

 the early years of this century are to be found in, 

 or spring out of, the works of these men. 



So, if I mistake not, Strauss, if he did not 

 originate the idea of taking the mythopceic faculty 

 into account in the development of the Gospel 

 narratives, and though he may have exaggerated 

 the influence of that faculty, obliged scientific 



