EDWARD BtTEGESS. 125 



have discovered no cause of offense in it. It simply was, 

 what is purported to be, a conscientious inquiry into the 

 origin of species made by.one who possessed in extra- 

 ordinary measure, the power of patient, prolonged and 

 accurate observation, united to a power of generalization 

 seldom granted to the sons of men. No more calm or 

 dispassionate scientific work was ever written on such a 

 subject. It was a collection of facts accumulated during 

 a quarter of a century, which led logically to the con- 

 clusion that the different specie of animals and plants 

 had been developed from one another ; and the operation 

 of certain laws that he named, accounted for or explained 

 the wide variations. Man was not mentioned in the 

 whole book. But many persons at once saw, that if the 

 various kinds of animals, so strikingly different from 

 one another, had arisen from some common progenitor, 

 the logical inference must include within the operation 

 of this law, even the highest mammal — man himself ; 

 and hence the tumult. 



I mention this not to give an exposition of the Dar- 

 winian theory, but to show that Mr. Darwin, when he 

 wrote his celebrated book, was engaged in a disinterested 

 search for truth. He was not assailing and he did not 

 assail any existing beliefs. He was following a line of 

 scientific research which he had fortunately discovered, 

 the observed facts of which led him irresistibly to certain 

 very important conclusions. But you see, that even in 

 this extreme case, in which science stirred up a momen- 

 tous agitation, the provocation was not direct,but indirect. 

 In the great majority of cases, the search and the dis- 

 covery of new truth in the fields of science, arouses no 

 malignant passion, but only pleasure and gratification 

 that an addition has been made to the stock of human 

 knowledge. 



Therefore I say, that the scientific investigator usually 

 has a fair field ; he can pursue his researches undeteiTed 



81 



