But it is hard, if not impossible, to find a stopping-place.
Some of the facts or accepted conclusions already referred to, and
several others, of a more general character, which must be taken into
the account, impel the theory onward with accumulated force. _Vires_
(not to say _virus) acquirit eundo_. The theory hitches on
wonderfully well to Lyell's uniformitarian theory in geology,--that
the thing that has been is the thing that is and shall be,--that the
natural operations now going on will account for all geological
changes in a quiet and easy way, only give them time enough, so
connecting the present and the proximate with the farthest past by
almost imperceptible gradations,--a view which finds large and
increasing, if not general, acceptance in physical geology, and of
which Darwin's theory is the natural complement.
So the Darwinian theory, once getting a foothold, marches boldly on,
follows the supposed near ancestors of our present species farther
and yet farther back into the dim past, and ends with an analogical
inference which "makes the whole world kin." As we said at the
beginning, this upshot discomposes us. Several features of the theory
have an uncanny look.
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