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Show 152 Mlt. DARWIN'S WORK AND And if in course of time I see good reasons for such a proceeding, I shall have no hesitation in coming before you, and pointing out any change in my opinion without finding the slightest occasion to blush for so doing. So I say that we accept this view as we accept any other, so long as it will help us, and we feel bound to retain it only so long as it will serve our great purpose- the improvement of Man's estate and the widening of his knowledge. The moment this, or any other conception, ceases to be useful for these purposes, away with it to the four winds; we care not what becomes of it ! But to say truth, although it has been my business to attend closely to the controversies roused bv the publication of Mr. Darwin's book, I think that n~t one of the enormous mass of objections and obstacles which have been raised is of any very great value, except that sterility case which I brought before you just now. All the rest are misunderstandings of some sort, arising either from prejudice, or want of knowledge, or still more from want of patience and care in reading the work. For you must recollect that it is not a book to be read, with as much ease, as its pleasant style may lead you to imagine. You spin through it as if it were a novel the first time you read it, and think you know all about it; the second time you read it you think you know rather less about it; and the third time, you are amazed to find how little you have really apprehended its vast scope and objects. I can positively say that I never take it up without finding in it some new view or lio-ht ' '=' ' or suggestion that I have not noticed before. That is the best characteristic of a thorough and profound book; THE PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE. 153 and I believe this feature of the "Origin of Species" explains why so many persons have ventured to pass judgment and criticisms upon it which are by no means worth the paper they are written on. Before concluding these lectures there is one point to which I must advert,-though, as Mr. Darwin has said nothing about man in his book, it concerns myself rather than him ;-for I have strongly maintained on sundry occasions that if Mr. Darwin's views are sound, they apply as much to man as to the lower mammal8, seeing that it is perfectly demonstrable that the structural differences which separate man from the apes are not greater than those which separate some apes from others. There cannot be the slightest doubt in the world that the argument which applies to the improvement of the horse from an earlier stock, or of ape from ape, applies to the improvement of man frmn some simpler and lower stock than man. There is not a single faculty-functional or structural, moral, intellectual, or instinctive,-there is no faculty whatever that is not capable of improvement; there is no faculty whatsoever which does not depend upon structure, and as structure tends to vary, it is capable of being im-lJroved. Well, I have taken a good deal of pains at various times to prove this, and I have endeavoured to meet the objections of those who maintain, that the structural differences between n1an and the lower animals are of so vast a character and enormous extent, that even if Mr. Darwin's views are correct, you cannot imagine this particular modification to take place. It is, in fact, easy matter to prove that, so far as structure is cor:- |