10.


This is very strong language, but it is hardly stronger than that
habitually employed by the leading men of science when they speak of
Mr. Darwin. To go farther afield, in February 1879 the Germans
devoted an entire number of one of their scientific periodicals {3}
to the celebration of Mr. Darwin's seventieth birthday. There is no
other Englishman now living who has been able to win such a
compliment as this from foreigners, who should be disinterested
judges.

Under these circumstances, it must seem the height of presumption to
differ from so great an authority, and to join the small band of
malcontents who hold that Mr. Darwin's reputation as a philosopher,
though it has grown up with the rapidity of Jonah's gourd, will yet
not be permanent. I believe, however, that though we must always
gladly and gratefully owe it to Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace that the
public mind has been brought to accept evolution, the admiration now
generally felt for the "Origin of Species" will appear as
unaccountable to our descendants some fifty or eighty years hence as
the enthusiasm of our grandfathers for the poetry of Dr. Erasmus
Darwin does to ourselves; and as one who has yielded to none in
respect of the fascination Mr. Darwin has exercised over him, I would
fain say a few words of explanation which may make the matter clearer
to our future historians. I do this the more readily because I can
at the same time explain thus better than in any other way the steps
which led me to the theory which I afterwards advanced in "Life and
Habit."