THE DEFENCE OF DARWIN 51 



as he will, he strives in vain to break through the ties which 

 hold him to matter and the lower forms of life. . . . 



" I have said that the man of science is the sworn interpreter 

 of nature in the high court of reason. But of what avail is his 

 honest speech if ignorance is the assessor of the judge, and pre- 

 judice foreman of the jury ? I hardly know of a great physical 

 truth, whose universal reception has not been preceded by an 

 epoch in which most estimable persons have maintained that the 

 phenomena investigated were directly dependent on the Divine 

 Will, and that the attempt to investigate them was not only 

 futile, but blasphemous. And there is a wonderful tenacity of 

 life about this sort of opposition to physical science. Crushed 

 and maimed in every battle, it yet seems never to be slain ; and 

 after a hundred defeats it is at this day as rampant, though 

 happily not so mischievous, as in the time of Galileo. 



" But to those whose life is spent, to use Newton's noble 

 words, in picking up here a pebble and there a pebble on the 

 shores of the great ocean of truth — who watch, day by day, 

 the slow but sure advance of that mighty tide, bearing on its 

 bosom the thousand treasures wherewith man ennobles and 

 beautifies his life — it would be laughable, if it were not so sad, 

 to see the little Canutes of the hour enthroned in solemn state, 

 bidding that great wave to stay, and threatening to check its 

 beneficent progress. The wave rises and they fly ; but unlike 

 the brave old Dane, they learn no lesson of humility : the 

 throne is pitched at what seems a safe distance, and the folly is 

 repeated. 



" Surely it is the duty of the public to discourage everything 

 of this kind, to discredit these foolish meddlers who think they 

 do the Almighty a service by preventing a thorough study of 

 his works." 



And again, after alluding to the contests which the 

 new renascence of scientific thought was likely to in- 

 volve : — 



" But I verily believe that come what will, the part which 

 England may play in the battle is a grand and a noble one. She 

 may prove to the world that for one people, at any rate, 

 despotism and demagogy are not the necessary alternatives of 

 government : that freedom and order are not incompatible ; that 



