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Present And Past Conditions Of Organic Nature Are To Be Discovered.--The Origination Of Living Beings, by Thomas H. Huxley

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Title: The Method By Which The Causes Of The Present And Past Conditions Of Organic Nature Are To Be Discovered.--The Origination Of Living Beings
Lecture III. (of VI.), Lectures To Working Men, at the
Museum of Practical Geology, 1863, On Darwin's work: "Origin
of Species".

Author: Thomas H. Huxley

Posting Date: January 4, 2009 [EBook #2923]
Release Date: November, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE METHOD BY WHICH THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT AND PAST CONDITIONS OF
ORGANIC NATURE ARE TO BE DISCOVERED.--THE ORIGINATION OF LIVING BEINGS

Lecture III. (of VI.), Lectures To Working Men, at the Museum of
Practical Geology, 1863, On Darwin's work: "Origin of Species".

By Thomas H. Huxley

In the two preceding lectures I have endeavoured to indicate to you the
extent of the subject-matter of the inquiry upon which we are engaged;
and now, having thus acquired some conception of the Past and Present
phenomena of Organic Nature, I must now turn to that which constitutes
the great problem which we have set before ourselves;--I mean, the
question of what knowledge we have of the causes of these phenomena of
organic nature, and how such knowledge is obtainable.

Here, on the threshold of the inquiry, an objection meets us. There are
in the world a number of extremely worthy, well-meaning persons, whose
judgments and opinions are entitled to the utmost respect on account of
their sincerity, who are of opinion that Vital Phenomena, and especially
all questions relating to the origin of vital phenomena, are questions
quite apart from the ordinary run of inquiry, and are, by their very
nature, placed out of our reach. They say that all these phenomena
originated miraculously, or in some way totally different from the
ordinary course of nature, and that therefore they conceive it to be
futile, not to say presumptuous, to attempt