CHAPTER XI 

 TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 



WHEN an objection to a complex the- 

 ory in any department of science is 

 so extremely obvious as to seem at 

 first sight fatal to the theory, it is unwise to urge 

 it in argument until we have very thoroughly 

 considered the matter. Men like Laplace and 

 Goethe, Spencer and Darwin, in framing their 

 theories of evolution, are indeed liable to over- 

 look difficulties which are so unobtrusive as to 

 be detected only after prolonged observation ; 

 but they are very unlikely to overlook difficul- 

 ties which are so conspicuous as to occur at 

 once to the minds of a hundred general readers. 

 When, therefore, a reader of average culture, 

 who has perhaps never seriously bent his mind 

 to the question of the origin of species, and who 

 is very likely unacquainted with the sciences 

 which throw light upon that subject, finds him- 

 self immediately confronted by difficulties in a 

 theory which men of the highest learning and 

 capacity have spent a quarter of a century in 

 testing, common prudence should lead him to 

 continue his study until he has made sure that 



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