DARWINISM AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



DARWINISM VERIFIED. 



IT is not often that the propounder of a new 

 and startling scientific theory has lived to see his 

 daring innovations accepted by the scientific 

 world in general. Harvey's great discovery of 

 the circulation of the blood was scoffed at for 

 nearly a whole generation ; and Newton's law of 

 gravitation, though proved by the strictest math- 

 ematical proof, received from many eminent men 

 but a slow and grudging acquiescence. Even 

 Leibnitz, who, as a mathematician hardly inferior 

 to Newton himself, might have been expected to 

 be convinced on simple inspection of the theory, 

 was prevented from accepting it by the theo- 

 logical objection that it appeared to substitute 

 the action of a physical force for the direct ac- 

 tion of the Deity. In France, where ideas not 

 of French origin are very apt to be but slowly 



