THE DEFENCE OF DARWIN 55 



difficult path ; but why should their souls be deeply vexed ? 

 The majesty of fact is on their side, and the elemental forces 

 of Nature are working for them. . . . Harmonious order 

 governing eternally continuous progress — the web and woof of 

 matter and force interweaving by slow degrees, without a broken 

 thread, that veil which lies between us and the Infinite — that 

 universe which alone we know or can know ; such is the picture 

 which science draws of the world, and in proportion as any part 

 of that picture is in unison with the rest, so may we feel sure 

 that it is rightly painted. Shall Biology alone remain out of 

 harmony with her sister sciences ? " 



The following passages are of particular interest, being 

 in some sort prophetic : — 



" Mr Darwin's position might, we think, have been even 

 stronger than it is if he had not embarrassed himself with the 

 aphorism, Natura non facit saltum, which turns up so often in 

 his pages. We believe, as we have said above, that Nature 

 does make jumps now and then, and a recognition of the fact 

 is of no small importance in disposing of many minor objections 

 to the doctrine of transmutation. . . . What if the orbit of 

 Darwinism should be a little too circular ? What if species 

 should offer residual phenomena, here and there, not explicable 

 by natural selection ? . . . And viewed as a whole, we do not 

 believe that, since the publication of Von Baer's Researches on 

 Development, thirty years ago, any work has appeared calculated 

 to exert so large an influence, not only on the future of Biology, 

 but in extending the domination of Science over regions of 

 thought into which she has, as yet, hardly penetrated." 



The defence of Darwinism in various ways, and before 

 diverse audiences, by no means occupied the whole of 

 Huxley's time, lecture work apart, during i860. This 

 year, for example, witnessed the completion of the arrange- 

 ments for bringing out the Natural History Review, regard- 

 ing which enough has been said elsewhere (p. 39), and 

 the first number of which appeared in January, 1861. 



Notice must also be made of a paper " On the Structure 

 of the Mouth and Pharynx of the Scorpion" (Q. J. 



