THE GROUND CLEARED. 37 



its words. Specially remarkable — miraculous 

 it really seems to be — is that character of 

 reserve which leaves open to reason all that 

 reason may be able to attain. The meaning 

 of those words seems always to be a meaning 

 a-head of science — not because it anticipates 

 the results of science, but because it is inde- 

 pendent of them, and runs, as it were, round 

 the outer margin of all possible discovery. 



Having now cleared the ground of some 

 preliminary difficulties which might otherwise 

 have impeded us in a proper access to the 

 subject, I shall proceed in the next Part to 

 deal with the first of the three questions into 

 which that subject is divided — viz. the Origin of 

 Man considered as a Species, in so far as this 

 question appears to be accessible to reason. 



