I need not quote more; the sentence goes on to talk about “firmly grounding” something which philosophers and speculators might have taken a century or two more “to establish in embryo;” but those who wish to see it must turn to Mr. Allen’s book.

If I have formed too severe an estimate of Mr. Darwin’s work and character—­and this is more than likely—­the fulsomeness of the adulation lavished on him by his admirers for many years past must be in some measure my excuse.  We grow tired even of hearing Aristides called just, but what is so freely said about Mr. Darwin puts us in mind more of what the people said about Herod—­that he spoke with the voice of a God, not of a man.  So we saw Professor Ray Lankester hail him not many years ago as the “greatest of living men.” {224a}

It is ill for any man’s fame that he should be praised so extravagantly.  Nobody ever was as good as Mr. Darwin looked, and a counterblast to such a hurricane of praise as has been lately blowing will do no harm to his ultimate reputation, even though it too blow somewhat fiercely.  Art, character, literature, religion, science (I have named them in alphabetical order), thrive best in a breezy, bracing air; I heartily hope I may never be what is commonly called successful in my own lifetime—­and if I go on as I am doing now, I have a fair chance of succeeding in not succeeding.

CHAPTER XVII—­Professor Ray Lankester and Lamarck

Being anxious to give the reader a sample of the arguments against the theory of natural selection from among variations that are mainly either directly or indirectly functional in their inception, or more briefly against the Erasmus-Darwinian and Lamarckian systems, I can find nothing more to the point, or more recent, than Professor Ray Lankester’s letter to the Athenaeum of March 29, 1884, to the latter part of which, however, I need alone call attention.  Professor Ray Lankester says:-

“And then we are introduced to the discredited speculations of Lamarck, which have found a worthy advocate in Mr. Butler, as really solid contributions to the discovery of the verae causae of variation!  A much more important attempt to do something for Lamarck’s hypothesis, of the transmission to offspring of structural peculiarities acquired by the parents, was recently made by an able and experienced naturalist, Professor Semper of Wurzburg.  His book on ‘Animal Life,’ &c., is published in the ’International Scientific Series.’  Professor Semper adduces an immense number and variety of cases of structural change in animals and plants brought about in the individual by adaptation (during its individual life-history) to new conditions.  Some of these are very marked changes, such as the loss of its horny coat in the gizzard of a pigeon fed on meat; but in no single instance could professor Semper show—­although it was his object and desire to do so if possible—­that such change was transmitted from parent to offspring.  Lamarckism looks all very well on paper, but, as Professor Semper’s book shows, when put to the test of observation and experiment it collapses absolutely.”