ON SPECIES AND RACES, AND THEIR ORIGIN 393 
made their election to follow science whithersoever she leads, and 
whatsoever lions be in the path. Their duty is clear enough. 
“ And, in my apprehension, that of the public is not doubtful. 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 prejudice 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 in- 
vestigate 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 where- 
with 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. 
“The Origin of Species is not the first, and it will not be the salt 
of the great questions born of science, which will demand settlement 
from this generation. The general mind is seething strangely, and 
to those who watch the signs of the times, it seems plain that this 
nineteenth century will see revolutions of thought and practice as 
great as those which the sixteenth witnessed. Through what trials 
and sore contests the civilized world will have to pass in the course 
of this new reformation, who can tell ? 
“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 demagoguy 
are not the necessary alternatives of government ; that freedom and 
order are not incompatible ; that reverence is the handmaid of know- 
