"
This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentation;
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 undulatory 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 attraction of
gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on
this unknown element of attraction; notwithstanding that Leibnitz formerly
accused Newton of introducing "occult qualities and miracles into
philosophy."
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the
religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how
transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery
ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also
attacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferentially of
revealed, religion.
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