ORIGIN OF LIFE. 49 
avoid investigating, or ever writing anything definite, 
upon this part of the subject. Taking advantage of 
the enormous weight of prejudice and prepossession 
against views which they are themselves for one 
reason or another unwilling to admit; taking advan- 
tage also of collateral complexities with which the 
subject is unavoidably beset, they succeed (either 
knowingly or unwittingly) in introducing confusion 
into their treatment of the question by dealing with 
side-issues as though they were essentials. The inco- 
herence of their argument seems, in fact, to remain 
undiscovered by a large majority of their readers, and 
they thus contrive to escape detection—like cuttle-fish 
behind the clouds produced by their own ink. 
Well may Sir John Herschel have said,* when 
speaking of the use and abuse of hypotheses, that 
“a bigoted adherence to them, or, indeed, to peculiar 
views of any kind, in opposition to facts as they 
arise, is the bane of all philosophy.” Well indeed 
will it be for Science generally, or the Cause of Truth, 
when her followers in all departments learn more 
fully to act in accordance with wise precepts such ‘as 
these + :—“ Experience once recognized as the foun- 
tain of all our knowledge of nature, it follows that 
in the study of nature and its laws, we ought at once 
* Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 204. 
+ Idem, p. 79. 
E 
