all about it some day, but it can hardly be expected to do so all at once, considering the way in which Mr. Allen and so many more throw dust in its eyes, and will doubtless continue to throw it as long as an honest penny is to be turned by doing so.  Mr. Allen, then, is probably right in saying that “the name of Darwin will no doubt be often tacked on to what are in reality the principles of Lamarck,” nor can it be denied that Mr. Darwin, by his practice of using “the theory of natural selection” as though it were a synonym for “the theory of descent with modification,” contributed to this result.

I do not myself doubt that he intended to do this, but Mr. Allen would say no less confidently he did not.  He writes of Mr. Darwin as follows:-

“Of Darwin’s pure and exalted moral nature no Englishman of the present generation can trust himself to speak with becoming moderation.”

He proceeds to trust himself thus:-

“His love of truth, his singleness of heart, his sincerity, his earnestness, his modesty, his candour, his absolute sinking of self and selfishness—­these, indeed are all conspicuous to every reader on the very face of every word he ever printed.”

This “conspicuous sinking of self” is of a piece with the “delightful unostentatiousness which every one must have noticed” about which Mr. Allen writes on page 65.  Does he mean that Mr. Darwin was “ostentatiously unostentatious,” or that he was “unostentatiously ostentatious”?  I think we may guess from this passage who it was that in the old days of the Pall Mall Gazelle called Mr. Darwin “a master of a certain happy simplicity.”

Mr. Allen continues:-

“Like his works themselves, they must long outlive him.  But his sympathetic kindliness, his ready generosity, the staunchness of his friendship, the width and depth and breadth of his affections, the manner in which ’he bore with those who blamed him unjustly without blaming them again’—­these things can never be so well known to any other generation of men as to the three generations that walked the world with him” (pp. 174, 175).

Again:-

“He began early in life to collect and arrange a vast encyclopaedia of facts, all finally focussed with supreme skill upon the great principle he so clearly perceived and so lucidly expounded.  He brought to bear upon the question an amount of personal observation, of minute experiment, of world-wide book knowledge, of universal scientific ability, such as never, perhaps, was lavished by any other man upon any other department of study.  His conspicuous and beautiful love of truth, his unflinching candour, his transparent fearlessness and honesty of purpose, his childlike simplicity, his modesty of demeanour, his charming manner, his affectionate disposition, his kindliness to friends, his courtesy to opponents, his gentleness to harsh and often bitter assailants, kindled in the minds of men of science everywhere throughout the world a contagious enthusiasm only equalled perhaps among the disciples of Socrates and the great teachers of the revival of learning.  His name became a rallying-point for the children of light in every country” (pp. 196, 197).