222 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



any reader of it whether, for absolute, unmitigated 

 inconclusiveness as to the main doctrine, it is not 

 of the two facile princeps. ... His mistake, the one 

 great mistake, the one great cardinal error, as it 

 appears to me, which runs through the whole of 

 his work, is in supposing that because many mere 

 varieties had their origin in one common ancestor, 

 therefore all distinct species are to be similarly 

 accounted for. His whole argument is a non sequi- 

 tur. It is no argument, but mere assumption, that 

 because the whole of animated nature is joined 

 together (including fossil species, with their ' imper- 

 fection of record ') by a series of links, even though 

 almost imperceptibly following on to one another, 

 therefore the whole chain has come from a single 

 unit." 



Needless to say, the views which he advanced 

 exposed him to many attacks and no little abuse 

 from various quarters, but of one and all of them 

 it can only be said here that, so far from silencing 

 him, they appeared, if they had any effect at all, 

 to convince him more strongly of the necessity 

 for going on unswervingly and with no less deter- 

 mination in the line which seemed to him to be 

 marked out by sound reasoning ; and being so 

 marked out, it would have been in his eyes a failure 

 of duty not to have expressed his views fearlessly. 

 This was the position he maintained to the very 

 end of the chapter. 



Closely connected in his mind with Darwinism 

 was the, to him, painful and distressing subject of 



