276 LIFE AND HABIT. 



an exceedingly mistaken way. Yet his triumph is com- 

 plete, for no matter how much any one now moves the 

 foundation, he cannot shake the superstructure, which 

 has become so currently accepted as to be above the 

 need of any support from reason, and to be as difficult 

 to destroy as it was originally difficult of construction. 

 Less than twenty years ago, we never met with, or 

 heard of, any one who accepted evolution ; we did not 

 even know that such a doctrine had been ever broached ; 

 unless it was that some one now and again said that 

 there was a very dreadful book going about like a 

 rampant lion, called "Vestiges of Creation," whereon 

 we said that we would on no account read it, lest it 

 should shake our faith ; then we would shake our heads 

 and talk of the preposterous folly and wickedness of such 

 shallow speculations. Had not the book of Genesis been 

 written for our learning ? Yet, now, who seriously dis- 

 putes the main principles of evolution ? I cannot believe 

 that there is a bishop on the bench at this moment who 

 does not accept them; even the " holy priests " themselves 

 bless evolution as their predecessors blessed Cleopatra 

 — when they ought not. It is not he who first con- 

 ceives an idea, nor he who sets it on its legs and makes 

 it go on all fours, but he who makes other people accept 

 the main conclusion, whether on right grounds or on 

 wrong ones, who has done the greatest work as regards 

 the promulgation of an opinion. And this is what Mr. 

 Darwin has done for evolution. He has made us think 

 that we know the origin of species, and so of genera, in 

 spite of his utmost efforts to assure us that we know 

 nothing of the causes from which the vast majority of 



