278 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XI 



stitions." There was actual danger lest a new gener- 

 ation should "accept the main doctrines of the Origin 

 of Species with as little reflection, and it may be with 

 as little justification, as so many of our contempor- 

 aries, years ago, rejected them." 



So dire a consummation, he declared, must be 

 prevented by unflinching criticism, the essence of 

 the scientific spirit, "for the scientific spirit is of 

 more value than its products, and irrationally held 

 truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors." 



What, then, were the facts which justified so 

 great a change as had taken place, which had re- 

 moved some of the most important qualifications 

 under which he himself had accepted the theory? 

 He proceeded to enumerate the " crushing accumula- 

 tion of evidence" during this period, which had 

 proved the imperfection of the geological record; 

 had filled up enormous gaps, such as those between 

 birds and reptiles, vertebrates and invertebrates, 

 flowering and flowerless plants, or the lowest forms 

 of animal and plant life. More : paleontology alone 

 has effected so much the fact that evolution has 

 taken place is so irresistibly forced upon the mind 

 by the study of the Tertiary mammalia brought to 

 light since 1859, that "if the doctrine of evolution 

 had not existed, paleontologists must have invented 

 it." He further developed the subject by reading 

 before the Zoological Society a paper " On the Appli- 

 cation of the Laws of Evolution to the Arrangement 

 of the Vertebrata, and more particularly of the 



