496 CONCLUSION, 



misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the 

 modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I 

 may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this 

 work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous 

 position — namely, at the close of the Introduction — the 

 following words : ^^ I am convinced that natural selection 

 has been the main but not the exclusive means of modi- 

 fication." This has been of no avail. Great is the power 

 of steady misrepresentation ; but the history of science 

 shows that fortunately this power does not long endure. 



It can hardly be suj^posed that a false theory would 

 explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory 

 of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above 

 specified. It has recently been objected that this is an 

 unsafe method of arguing; bnt it is a method used in 

 judging of the common events of life, and has often been 

 used by the greatest natural philosophers. The undulatory 

 theory of light has thus been arrived at ; and the belief in 

 the revolution of the earth on its own axis was until lately 

 supported by hardly any direct evidence. It is no valid 

 objection that science as yet throws no light on the far 

 higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can 

 explain what is the essence of the attraction of gravity ? 

 No one now objects to following out the results consequent 

 on this unknown element of attraction ; notwithstanding 

 that Leibnitz formerly accused Newton of introducing 

 ''occult qualities and miracles into philosophy." 



I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume 

 should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satis- 

 factory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to 

 remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, 

 namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also 

 attacked by Leibnitz, ''as subversive of natural, and infer- 

 entially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and 

 divine has written to me that " he has gradually learned to 

 see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to 

 believe that He created a few original forms capable of 

 self-development into other and needful forms, as to 

 believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply 

 the voids caused by the action of His laws." 



Why, it may be asked, until recently did nearly all the 

 most eminent living naturalists and geologists disbelieve in 



