356 TENDENC Y OF OPINION NOT E VIDE NCR. 



formed, " finds itself put into possession of an instrument 

 which its predecessors, since immemorial times, have gradu- 

 ally brought to an even higher grade of perfection !" Such 

 remarks serve to indicate how easily Strauss finds himself 

 able to account for the formation, growth, and action of 

 everything according to the Darwinian hypothesis. To me, 

 it appears surprising that a writer so wonderfully skilled in 

 critical analysis as Strauss has proved himself to be, should 

 have given his assent to such extraordinary statements, 

 without halting to ask himself whether the evidence upon 

 which they were based was trustworthy and true, and whether 

 the reported facts had been demonstrated by observers 

 qualified to estimate their importance and judge of their 

 correctness. But Strauss seems to consider that to regard 

 new hypotheses with favour, and to mercilessly scoff at old 

 statements said to be inspired, may be accepted as evidence 

 of honesty and uprightness on the part of the critic. 



It cannot surely be in accordance with the true interests 

 of science, and certainly it is not right on other grounds, that 

 scientific men, however high the reputation they may have 

 won, should be permitted, without opposition, to persuade 

 literary critics less learned than themselves that views are true 

 which are not true, or to assert again and again, in the most 

 dictatorial manner, that many circumstances tend to such and 

 such conclusions while, in truth, if all the facts known at the 

 very time were clearly stated and properly placed before the 

 reader, any sensible person would be convinced that the 

 tendency was not in the direction in which it had been 

 positively asserted to be.* 



* The announcement of a no longer powerful but always determined 

 and inconsiderate party in science could hardly have excited less in- 



