THE BELFAST ADDRESS 191 



of perfecting — adds increment to increment of infinitesimal 

 change, and in this way gradually breaks down your re- 

 luctance to admit that the exquisite climax of the whole 

 CO aid be a result of natural selection. 



Mr. Darwin shirks no difficulty; and, saturated as the 

 subject was with his own thought, he must have known, 

 better than his critics, the weakness as well as the strength 

 of his theory. This of course would be of little avail were 

 his object a temporary dialectic victory, instead of the es- 

 tablishment of a truth which he means to be everlasting. 

 But he takes no pains to disguise the weakness he has 

 discerned; nay, he takes every pains to bring it into the 

 strongest light. His vast resources enable him to cope 

 with objections started by himself and others, so as to 

 leave the final impression upon the reader's mind that, if 

 they be not completely answered, they certainly are not 

 fatal. Their negative force being thus destroyed, you are 

 free to be influenced by the vast positive mass of evidence 

 he is able to bring before you. This largeness of knowl- 

 edge, and readiness of resource, render Mr. Darwin the 

 most terrible of antagonists. Accomplished naturalists 

 have levelled heavy and sustained criticisms against him 

 — not always with the view of fairly weighing his theory, 

 but with the express intention of exposing its weak points 

 only. This does not irritate him. He treats every objec- 

 tion with a soberness and thoroughness which even Bishop 

 Butler might be proud to imitate, surrounding each fact 

 with its appropriate detail, placing it in its proper rela- 

 tions, and usually giving it a significance which, as long 

 as it was kept isolated, failed to appear. This is done 

 without a trace of ill-temper. He moves over the subject 

 with the passionless strength of a glacier; and the grind- 



