CHAPTER XL 



TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 



When an objection to a complex theory 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 overlook difficulties 

 which are so unobtrusive as to be detected only after pro- 

 longed observation; but they are very unlikely to overlook 

 difficulties 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 himself immediately 

 confronted by difficulties in a theory which men of the 

 highest learning and capacity have spent a quarter of a cen- 

 tury in testing, common prudence should lead him to con- 

 tinue his study until he has made sure that the difficulty is 

 not due to his own ignorance rather than to the shortcomings 

 of the theory. This wholesome caution is too seldom mani- 

 fested by literary reviewers, many of whom, in criticizing 

 ]Mr. Darwin's theory without having duly read his works, 



