weathercock heads among us are much exercised.

[6] Some critics do not even take the trouble to read. I have recently
been adjured with much solemnity; to state publicly why I have "changed
my opinion" as to the value of the palaeontological evidence of the
occurrence of evolution.

To this my reply is, Why should I, when that statement was made seven
years ago? An address delivered from the Presidential Chair of the
Geological Society, in 1870, may be said to be a public document,
inasmuch as it not only appeared in the _Journal_ of that learned
body, but was re-published, in 1873, in a volume of _Critiques and
Addresses_, to which my name is attached. Therein will be found a
pretty full statement of my reasons for enunciating two propositions:
(1) that "when we turn to the higher _Vertebrata_, the results of
recent investigations, however we may sift and criticise them, seem to
me to leave a clear balance in favour of the evolution of living forms
one from another;" and (2) that the case of the horse is one which
"will stand rigorous criticism." Thus I do not see clearly in what way
I can be said to have changed my opinion, except in the way of
intensifying it, when in consequence of the accumulation of similar
evidence since 1870, I recently spoke of the denial of evolution as not
worth serious consideration.

[7] Writers of this stamp are fond of talking about the Baconian
method. I beg them therefore to lay to heart these two weighty sayings
of the herald of Modern Science:--

"Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex verbis, verba
notionum tesserae sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsae (_id quod basis rei