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actually did, and prior to the work which it attacked; when he maintained that what was being done was

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so common a practice that it never occurred" to him -the writer of some twenty volumes-to do what all literary men must know to be inexorably requisite, I thought this was going far beyond what was permissible in honourable warfare, and that it was time, in the interests of literary and scientific morality, even more than in my own, to appeal to public opinion. I was particularly struck with the use of the words " it never occurred to me," and felt how completely of a piece it was with the opening paragraph of the Origin of Species. It was not merely that it did not occur to Mr. Darwin to state that the article had been modified since it was written-this would have been bad enough under the circumstances-but that it did occur to him to go out of his way to say what was not true. There was no necessity for him to have said anything about my book. It appeared, moreover, inadequate to tell me that if a reprint of the English Life was wanted (which might or might not be the case, and if it was not the case, why, a shrug of the shoulders, and I must make the best of it), Mr. Darwin might perhaps silently omit his note about my book, as he omitted his misrepresentation of the author of the Vestiges of Creation, put the words "revised and corrected by the author" on his title-page.

and

No matter how high a writer may stand, nor what services he may have unquestionably rendered, it cannot be for the general well-being that he should be allowed to set aside the fundamental principles of Straightforwardness and fair play. When I thought of Buffon, of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, of Lamarck, and even of the author of the Vestiges of Creation, to all of whom Mr. Darwin had dealt the same measure which he was

now dealing to myself; when I thought of these great men, now dumb, who had borne the burden and heat of the day, and whose laurels had been filched from them; of the manner, too, in which Mr. Darwin had been abetted by those who should have been the first to detect the fallacy which had misled him; of the hotbed of intrigue which science has now become; of the disrepute into which we English must fall as a nation if such practices as Mr. Darwin had attempted in this case were to be tolerated;-when I thought of all this, I felt that though prayers for the repose of dead men's souls might be unavailing, yet a defence of their work and memory, no matter against what odds, might avail the living, and resolved that I would do my utmost to make my countrymen aware of the spirit now ruling among those whom they delight to honour.

At first I thought I ought to continue the correspondence privately with Mr. Darwin, and explain to him that his letter was insufficient, but on reflection I felt that little good was likely to come of a second letter, if what I had already written was not enough. I therefore wrote to the Athenaeum and gave a condensed account of the facts contained in the last ten or a dozen pages. My letter appeared 31st January 1880.

The accusation was a very grave one; it was made in a very public place. I gave my name; I adduced the strongest prima facie grounds for the acceptance of my Statements; but there was no rejoinder, and for the best of all reasons-that no rejoinder was possible. Besides, what is the good of having a reputation for candour if one may not stand upon it at a pinch? I never yet knew a person with an especial reputation for candour without finding sooner or later that he had developed it as animals develop their organs, through" sense of need. Not only did Mr. Darwin remain perfectly quiet, but all

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reviewers and littérateurs remained perfectly quiet also. It seemed-though I do not for a moment believe that this is so-as if public opinion rather approved of what Mr. Darwin had done, and of his silence than otherwise. I saw the Life of Erasmus Darwin more frequently and more prominently advertised now than I had seen it hitherto-perhaps in the hope of selling off the adulterated copies, and being able to reprint the work with a corrected title-page. Presently I saw Professor Huxley hastening to the rescue with his lecture on the coming of age of the Origin of Species, and by May it was easy for Professor Ray Lankester to imply that Mr. Darwin was the greatest of living men. I have since noticed two or three other controversies raging in the Athenaeum and Times; in each of these cases I saw it assumed that the defeated party, when proved to have publicly misrepresented his adversary, should do his best to correct in public the injury which he had publicly inflicted, but I noticed that in none of them had the beaten side any especial reputation for candour. This probably made all the difference. But however this may be, Mr. Darwin left me in possession of the field, in the hope, doubtless, that the matter would blow over-which it apparently soon did. Whether it has done so in reality or no, is a matter which remains to be seen. My own belief is that people paid no attention to what I said, as believing it simply incredible, and that when they come to know that it is true, they will think as I do concerning it.

From ladies and gentlemen of science I admit that I have no expectations. There is no conduct so dishonourable that people will not deny it or explain it away, if it has been committed by one whom they recognize as of their own persuasion. It must be remembered that facts cannot be respected by the

scientist in the same way as by other people. It is his business to familiarize himself with facts, and, as we all know, the path from familiarity to contempt is an easy

one.

Here, then, I take leave of this matter for the present. If it appears that I have used language such as is rarely seen in controversy, let the reader remember that the occasion is, so far as I know, unparalleled for the cynicism and audacity with which the wrong complained of was committed and persisted in. I trust, however, that, though not indifferent to this, my indignation has been mainly roused, as when I wrote Evolution, Old and New, before Mr. Darwin had given me personal ground of complaint against him, by the wrongs he has inflicted on dead men, on whose behalf I now fight, as I trust that some one-whom I thank by anticipation-may one day fight on mine.

CHAPTER FIVE: INTRODUCTION TO PROFESSOR HERING'S

FTER

LECTURE

I HAD FINISHED EVOLUTION, Old and New, I wrote some articles for the Examiner, in which I carried out the idea put forward in Life and Habit, that we are one person with our ancestors. It follows from this, that all living animals and vegetables, being-as appears likely if the theory of evolution is accepted-descended from a common ancestor, are in reality one person, and unite to form a body corporate, of whose existence, however, they are unconscious. There is an obvious analogy between this and the manner in which the component cells of our bodies unite to form our single individuality, of which it is not likely they have a conception, and with which they have probably only the same partial and imperfect sympathy as we, the body corporate, have with them. In the articles above alluded to I separated the organic from the inorganic, and when I came to re-write them, I found that this could not be done, and that I must reconstruct what I had written. I was at work on this-to which I hope to return shortly-when Dr. Krause's Erasmus Darwin, with its preliminary notice by Mr. Charles Darwin, came out, and having been compelled, as I have shown above, by Dr. Krause's work to look a little into the German language, the opportunity seemed favourable for going on with it and becoming acquainted with Professor Hering's lecture. I therefore began to translate his lecture at once, with the kind assistance of friends whose patience seemed inexhaustible, and found myself well rewarded for my trouble.

Professor Hering and I, to use a metaphor of his own, are as men who have observed the action of living Since published as God the Known and God the Unknown, 1909. Reprinted in Shrewsbury Edition in Collected Essays.-A.T.B.

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