THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 161 



impossibilities whose life has been wasted in the attempt 

 to force the generous new wine of Science into the old 

 bottles of Judaism, compelled by the outcry of the same 

 strong party ? 



It is true that if philosophers have suffered, their cause 

 has been amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie 

 about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes 

 beside that of Hercules ; and history records that whenever 

 science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter 

 has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed, 

 if not annihilated ; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy 

 is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, 

 neither can it forget ; and though, at present, bewildered 

 and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that 

 the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and 

 the end of sound science ; and to visit, with such petty 

 thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl, those 

 who refuse to degrade Nature to the level of primitive 

 Judaism. 



Philosophers, on the other hand, have no such aggressive 

 tendencies. With eyes fixed on the noble goal to which 

 " per aspera et ardua " they tend, they may, now and then, 

 be stirred to momentary wrath by the unnecessary obstacles 

 with which the ignorant, or the malicious, encumber, if 

 they cannot bar, the difficult path ; but why should their 

 souls be deeply vexed ? The majesty of Fact is on their 

 side, and the elemental forces of Nature are working for 

 them. Not a star comes to the meridian at its calculated 

 time but testifies to the justice of their methods their 

 beliefs are " one with falling rain and with the growing 

 corn." By doubt they are established, and open inquiry 

 is then- bosom friend. Such men have no fear of traditions 

 however venerable, and no respect for them when they 

 become mischievous and obstructive ; but they have 

 better than mere antiquarian business in hand, and if 

 dogmas, which ought to be fossil but are not, are not 

 forced upon their notice, they are too happy to treat them 

 as non-existent. 



The hypotheses respecting the origin of species which 

 profess to stand upon a scientific basis, and, as such, alone 

 demand serious attention, are of two kinds. The one, 

 the " special creation " hypothesis, presumes every species 

 to have originated from one or more stocks, these not 

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