312 THE COMING OF AGE OF [LECT. 



History warns us, however, that it is the cus- 

 tomary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to 

 end as superstitions ; and, as matters now stand, it is 

 hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty 

 years, the new generation, educated under the influ- 

 ences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting 

 the main doctrines of the " Origin of Species," with as 

 little reflection, and it may be with as little justifica- 

 tion, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years 

 ago, rejected them. 



Against any such a consummation let us all 

 devoutly pray ; for the scientific spirit is of more 

 value than its products, and irrationally held truths 

 may be more harmful than reasoned errors. Now the 

 essence of the scientific spirit is criticism. It tells us 

 that whenever a doctrine claims our assent we should 

 reply, Take it if you can compel it. The struggle for 

 existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the 

 physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, 

 and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of 

 resisting extinction by its rivals. 



From this point of view, it appears to me that it 

 would be but a poor way of celebrating the Coming of 

 Age of the " Origin of Species/' were I merely to 

 dwell upon the facts, undoubted and remarkable as 

 they are, of its far-reaching influence and of the great 

 following of ardent disciples who are occupied in 

 spreading and developing its doctrines. Mere insani- 

 ties and inanities have before now swollen to por- 

 tentous size in the course of twenty years. Let us 

 rather ask this prodigious change in opinion to justify 



