His not having done so is of a piece with his silence about Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck in the early editions of the “Origin of Species,” and with the meagre reference to them which is alone found in the later ones.  It is of a piece also with the silence which Mr. Darwin invariably maintained when he saw his position irretrievably damaged, as, for example, by Mr. Spencer’s objection already referred to, and by the late Professor Fleeming Jenkin in the North British Review (June 1867).  Science, after all, should form a kingdom which is more or less not of this world.  The ideal scientist should know neither self nor friend nor foe—­he should be able to hob-nob with those whom he most vehemently attacks, and to fly at the scientific throat of those to whom he is personally most attached; he should be neither grateful for a favourable review nor displeased at a hostile one; his literary and scientific life should be something as far apart as possible from his social; it is thus, at least, alone that any one will be able to keep his eye single for facts, and their legitimate inferences.  We have seen Professor Mivart lately taken to task by Mr. Romanes for having said {248a} that Mr. Darwin was singularly sensitive to criticism, and made it impossible for Professor Mivart to continue friendly personal relations with him after he had ventured to maintain his own opinion.  I see no reason to question Professor Mivart’s accuracy, and find what he has said to agree alike with my own personal experience of Mr. Darwin, and with all the light that his works throw upon his character.

The most substantial apology that can be made for his attempt to claim the theory of descent with modification is to be found in the practice of Lamarck, Mr. Patrick Matthew, the author of the “Vestiges of Creation,” and Mr. Herbert Spencer, and, again, in the total absence of complaint which this practice met with.  If Lamarck might write the “Philosophie Zoologique” without, so far as I remember, one word of reference to Buffon, and without being complained of, why might not Mr. Darwin write the “Origin of Species” without more than a passing allusion to Lamarck?  Mr. Patrick Matthew, again, though writing what is obviously a resume of the evolutionary theories of his time, makes no mention of Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, or Buffon.  I have not the original edition of the “Vestiges of Creation” before me, but feel sure I am justified in saying that it claimed to be a more or less Minerva-like work, that sprang full armed from the brain of Mr. Chambers himself.  This at least is how it was received by the public; and, however violent the opposition it met with, I cannot find that its author was blamed for not having made adequate mention of Lamarck.  When Mr. Spencer wrote his first essay on evolution in the Leader (March 20, 1852) he did indeed begin his argument, “Those who cavalierly reject the doctrine of Lamarck,” &c., so that his essay purports to be written in support of Lamarck; but when he republished his article in 1858, the reference to Lamarck was cut out.