ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 79 



case" by suppressing adverse facts. I am not 

 intolerant, because I believe that dissent from 

 the general doctrine of evolution can only arise 

 either from ignorance of some special depart- 

 ments of science, or from a bias of feeling 

 against the doctrine — to both of which weak- 

 nesses evolutionists can afford to be indulgent. 

 And in order to show that I have not been 

 trying unfairly to make out a case, I shall con- 

 clude by briefly reviewing the arguments which 

 have been adduced against the doctrine in 

 question. 



The only argument of this kind that I know 

 from the side of reason (if we neglect those 

 special objections which have been fully shown 

 by Mr. Darwin himself to be based on inade- 

 quate information or erroneous conception, and 

 therefore futile), is that which says: — Evolution, 

 if true, can only be proved so by an actual ob- 

 servation of the process, and as no one pretends 



