THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 179 



wax, sweep and excavate equal spheres round the 

 selected points. The spheres intersect, and the planes 

 of intersection are built up with thin laminae. Hexa- 

 gonal cells are thus formed. This mode of treating 

 such questions is, as I have said, representative. The 

 expositor habitually retires from the more perfect and 

 complex, to the less perfect and simple, and carries you 

 with him through stages of perfecting adds increment 

 to increment of infinitesimal change, and in this way 

 gradually breaks down your reluctance to admit that 

 the exquisite climax of the whole could be a result of 

 natural selection. 



Mr. Darwin shirks no difficulty; and, saturated as 

 the subject was with his own thought, he must have 

 known, better than his critics, the weakness as well as 

 the strength of his theory. This of course would be of 

 little avail were his object a temporary dialectic victory, 

 instead of the establishment of a truth which he means 

 to be everlasting. But he takes no pains to disguise 

 the weakness he has discerned; nay, he takes every 

 pains to bring it into the strongest light. His vast 

 resources enable him to cope with objections started by 

 himself and others, so as to leave the final impression 

 upon the reader's mind that, if they be not completely 

 answered, they certainly are not fatal. Their negative 

 force being thus destroyed, you are free to be influenced 

 by the vast positive mass of evidence he is able to bring 

 before you. This largeness of knowledge, and readiness 

 of resource, render Mr. Darwin the most terrible of 

 antagonists. Accomplished naturalists have levelled 

 heavy and sustained criticisms against him not al- 

 ways with the view of fairly weighing his theory, but 

 with the express intention of exposing its weak points 

 only. This does not irritate him. He treats every ob- 

 jection with a soberness and thoroughness which even 



