formed the backbone," &c., and ought "to have been elaborately
stated," &c., but when I wrote "Life and Habit" neither Mr Romanes
nor any one else understood it to have been even glanced at by more
than a very few, and as for having been "elaborately stated," it had
been stated by Professor Hering as elaborately as it could be stated
within the limits of an address of only twenty-two pages, but with
this exception it had never been stated at all. It is not too much
to say that "Life and Habit," when it first came out, was considered
so startling a paradox that people would not believe in my desire to
be taken seriously, or at any rate were able to pretend that they
thought I was not writing seriously.

Mr. Romanes knows this just as well as all must do who keep an eye
on evolution; he himself, indeed, had said (Nature, January 27,
1881) that so long as I "aimed only at entertaining" my "readers by
such works as 'Erewhon' and 'Life and Habit'" (as though these books
were of kindred character) I was in my proper sphere. It would be
doing too little credit to Mr. Romanes' intelligence to suppose him
not to have known when he said this that "Life and Habit" was
written as seriously as my subsequent books on evolution, but it
suited him at the moment to join those who professed to consider it
another book of paradoxes such as, I suppose, "Erewhon" had been, so
he classed the two together. He could not have done this unless
enough people thought, or said they thought, the books akin, to give
colour to his doing so.

One alone of all my reviewers has, to my knowledge, brought Mr.
Spencer against me. This was a writer in the St. James's Gazette
(December 2, 1880). I challenged him in a letter which appeared
(December 8, 1880), and said, "I would ask your reviewer to be kind