As my pen finishes these passages, I can but be amused to think
what a terrible hubbub would have been made (in truth was made)
about any similar expressions of opinion a quarter of a century
ago. In fact, the contrast between the present condition of
public opinion upon the Darwinian question; between the
estimation in which Darwin's views are now held in the scientific
world; between the acquiescence, or at least quiescence, of the
theologians of the self-respecting order at the present day and
the outburst of antagonism on all sides in 1858-9, when the new
theory respecting the origin of species first became known to the
older generation to which I belong, is so startling that, except
for documentary evidence, I should be sometimes inclined to think
my memories dreams. I have a great respect for the younger
generation myself (they can write our lives, and ravel out all
our follies, if they choose to take the trouble, by and by), and
I should be glad to be assured that the feeling is reciprocal;
but I am afraid that the story of our dealings with Darwin may
prove a great hindrance to that veneration for our wisdom which I
should like them to display. We have not even the excuse that,
thirty years ago, Mr. Darwin was an obscure novice, who had no
claims on our attention. On the contrary, his remarkable
zoological and geological investigations had long given him an
assured position among the most eminent and original
investigators of the day; while his charming 'Voyage of a
Naturalist' had justly earned him a wide-spread reputation among
the general public. I doubt if there was any man then living who
had a better right to expect that anything he might choose to say
on such a question as the Origin of Species would be listened to
with profound attention, and discussed with respect; and there
was certainly no man whose personal character should have