nce in dealing with all that transcends experience. He feels more
vividly than any others can feel, the utter incomprehensibleness of the
simplest fact, considered in itself. He alone truly _sees_ that absolute
knowledge is impossible. He alone _knows_ that under all things there
lies an impenetrable mystery.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Since this was written (in 1857) the advance of
paleontological discovery, especially in America, has shown
conclusively, in respect of certain groups of vertebrates, that higher
types have arisen by modifications of lower; so that, in common with
others, Prof. Huxley, to whom the above allusion is made, now admits, or
rather asserts, biological progression, and, by implication, that there
have arisen more heterogeneous organic forms and a more heterogeneous
assemblage of organic forms.]
[Footnote 3: For detailed proof of these assertions see essay on
"Manners and Fashion."]
[Footnote 4: The argument concerning organic evolution contained in this
paragraph and the one preceding it, stands verbatim as it did when first
published in the _Westminster Review_ for April, 1857. I have thus left
it without the alteration of a word that it may show the view I then
held concerning the origin of species. The sole cause recognized is that
of direct adaptation of constitution to conditions consequent on
inheritance of the modifications of structure resulting from use and
disuse. There is no recognition of that further cause disclosed in Mr.
Darwin's work, published two and a half years later--the indirect
adaptation resulting from the natural selection of favourable
variations. The multiplication of effects is, however, equally
illustrated in whatever way the adaptation to changing conditions is
effected, or if it is effected in both ways, as I hold. I may add that
there is indicated the view that the succession of organic forms is not
serial but proceeds by perpetual divergence and re-divergence--that
there has been a continual "divergence of many races from one race":
each species being a "root" from which several other species branch out;
and the growth of a tree being thus the implied symbol.]
[Footnote 5: "Personal Narrative of the Origin of the Caoutchouc, or
India-Rubber Manufacture in England." By Thomas Hancock.]
TRANSCENDENTAL PHYSIOLOGY.
[_First published in_ The National Review _for October,_ 1857_,
under the title of "The Ultimate Laws of Physiology". The title
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