(...)"notion of the fixity of organic species, and accepted a revolution in morphological method.
Now the student of science is ordinarily not much disturbed by this evidence that his class forms no exception to Pope’s oft quoted characterisation of man as “sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled”. When, in the progress of thought, any prevalent scientific belief is recognised as erroneous, he simply discards this—with more or less endeavour to ascertain the particular causes of error and guard against their recurrence—and, on the whole, continues his natural processes of acquiring, evolving, systematising beliefs with undiminished confidence. But to the philosophical mind the ascertained erroneousness of some beliefs is apt to suggest the possible erroneousness of all. If a belief that I once held to(...)".