298 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' [i860. 



doctrine, that the breaks between successive formations 

 marked long intervals of time. It is very unfair. But poor 

 dear old Sedgwick seems rabid on the question. " Demo- 

 ralised understanding ! " If ever I talk with him I will tell 

 him that I never could believe that an inquisitor could be a 

 good man ; but now I know that a man may roast another, 

 and yet have as kind and noble a heart as Sedgvvick's." 

 The following passages are taken from the review : 

 " I need hardly go on any further with these objection 

 But I cannot conclude without expressing my detestation of 

 the theory, because of its unflinching materialism ; because 

 it has deserted the inductive track, the only track that leads 

 to physical truth ; because it utterly repudiates final causes, 

 and thereby indicates a demoralised understanding on the 

 part of its advocates." 



" Not that I believe that Darwin is an atheist ; though I 

 cannot but regard his materialism as atheistical. I think it 

 untrue, because opposed to the obvious course of nature, and 

 the very opposite of inductive truth. And I think it intensely 

 mischievous." 



"Each series of facts is laced together by a series of 

 assumptions, and repetitions of the one false principle. 

 You cannot make a good rope out of a string of air 

 bubbles." 



" But any startling and (supposed) novel paradox, main- 

 tained very boldly and with something of imposing plausi- 

 bility, produces in some minds a kind of pleasing excitement 

 which predisposes them in its favour ; and if they are unused 

 to careful reflection, and averse to the labour of accurate 

 investigation, they will be likely to conclude that what is 

 {apparently) original, must be a production of original genius, 

 and that anything very much opposed to prevailing notions 

 must be a grand disco-very, in short, that whatever comes 

 from the ' bottom of a well ' must be the ' truth ' supposed to 

 be hidden there." 





