REFERENCE TO DARWIN. 7 



confused heads are often most thoroughly convinced of 

 their own pre-eminence — on no subject do we so fre- 

 quently hear superficial opinions, mostly condemnatory, 

 and all evincing the grossest ignorance. 



I .wish then to render the reader able to survey 

 the whole ramified and complicated problem of the 

 doctrine of Descent, and its foundation by Darwin, and 

 to enable him to understand its cardinal points. But 

 we must first dispose of a preliminary question of uni- 

 versal importance and special significance, which is fre- 

 quently ignored by philosophical and theological oppo- 

 nents, that is, the question of the limits of the investiga- 

 tion of nature. For if it were an established principle 

 that the mystery of the living is difTerent frorn that of 

 the non-living, that the former might be disclosed, but 

 that the latter is shrouded in a veil which never can be 

 raised, as is even now so frequently asserted, then, in- 

 deed, all research directed towards the comprehension of. 

 life would be utterly vain and hopeless. 



But if the possibility of investigating life and its ori- 

 gin be not opposed by any a priori scruples, still more, if 

 the limits of investigation and knowledge, which un- 

 doubtedly exist, are no other for animate nature than 

 for the inanimate world of matter, we may venture to 

 approach our task. This will be most adequately ef- 

 fected by making ourselves somewhat familiar with the 

 object of the doctrine of Descent, restricting ourselves, 

 however, to the animal world. If I say then that we must 

 obtain a foundation for the theory of derivation or de- 

 scent, for the doctrine of the gradual and direct develop- 

 ment of the higher and now-existing organisms from 

 lower ancestral forms — in short, for the doctrine of the 



