NECESSARY BELIEFS. 69 



ler has said (Analogy, part i. chap, i.), I have lately 

 been sharply assailed by some one who fights under 

 a mask, indeed, but who from the beginning to the 

 end of his article points out not a single error of 

 biological fact in a discussion which he blames you 

 for applauding ignorantly. [Applause.] 



When this house is as full as it is to-day, there 

 are in it, among the fifteen hundred or two thou- 

 sand persons present, and representing all shades 

 of opinion, at least three or five hundred liberally 

 educated men who know what they are about ; and 

 I repel indignantly all the scapegrace scribble of 

 anonymous writers, whether in the newspaper or 

 quarterly press, against an audience which has been 

 drawn together now for more than two years on the 

 busiest hour of the busiest day of the week, sim- 

 ply by large and complicated themes, and not by 

 the speaker. You have come here to listen to very 

 imperfect discussions of very important themes ; and, 

 although I am not a native of New England, I dare 

 affirm that there is not on this continent another 

 city that would send out for as long a period and 

 at such an hour an audience as large as this to 

 study problems as complicated as those that have 

 come before you. [Applause.] My opinions are 

 not worth a rush; but the general agreement of 

 five or eight hundred or a thousand scholarly per- 

 sons is a sign of the times. You blame me for 

 having allowed a renowned publishing firm, whose 

 judgment in matters of taste is not often ques- 

 tioned, to preserve, in the first editions of the lee- 



