310 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



for brevity. So again it is difficult to avoid personifying 

 the word Nature ; but I mean by Nature, only the aggre- 

 gate action and product of many natural laws, and by 

 laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. With a 

 little familiarity such superficial objections will be for- 

 gotten. 



MISEBPKESENTATIOKS COKEECTBD. 



Origin of -^ ^7 Conclusions have lately been much 



Species, misrepresented, and it has been stated that I 

 ^^^* ■ attribute the modification of species exclusively 

 to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that 

 in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I 

 placed in a most conspicuous position — namely, at the 

 close of the introduction — ^the following words : " I am 

 convinced that natural selection has been the main but 

 not the exclusive means of modification*" This has been 

 of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentar 

 tion ; but the history of science shows that fortunately 

 this power does not long endure. 



It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would 

 explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of 

 natural selection, the several large classes of facts above 

 specified. It has recently been objected that this is an 

 unsafe method of arguing ; but it is a method used in 

 judging of the common events of life, and has often been 

 used by the greatest natural philosophers. The undula- 

 tory theory of light has thus been arrived at ; and the 

 belief in the revolution of the earth on its own axis was 

 until lately supported by hardly any direct evidence. It 

 is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light 

 on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of 

 life. Who can explain what is the essence of the attrac- 

 tion of gravity ? No one now objects to following out 



