Chapter 4

The manner in which Mr. Darwin met "Evolution, Old and New."

By far the most important notice of "Evolution, Old and New," was that taken by Mr. Darwin himself; for I can hardly be mistaken in believing that Dr. Krause's article would have been allowed to repose unaltered in the pages of the well-known German scientific journal, Kosmos, unless something had happened to make Mr. Darwin feel that his reticence concerning his grandfather must now be ended

Mr. Darwin, indeed, gives me the impression of wishing me to understand that this is not the case. At the beginning of this year he wrote to me, in a letter which I will presently give in full, that he had obtained Dr. Krause's consent for a translation, and had arranged with Mr. Dallas, before my book was "announced." "I remember this," he continues, "because Mr. Dallas wrote to tell me of the advertisement." But Mr. Darwin is not a clear writer, and it is impossible to say whether he is referring to the announcement of "Evolution, Old and New"--in which case he means that the arrangements for the translation of Dr. Krause's article were made before the end of February 1879, and before any public intimation could have reached him as to the substance of the book on which I was then engaged--or to the advertisements of its being now published, which appeared at the beginning of May; in which case, as I have said above, Mr. Darwin and his friends had for some time had full opportunity of knowing what I was about. I believe, however, Mr. Darwin to intend that he remembered the arrangements having been made before the beginning of May--his use of the word "announced," instead of "advertised," being an accident; but let this pass.

Some time after Mr. Darwin's work appeared in November 1879, I got it, and looking at the last page of the book, I read as follows:-

"They" (the elder Darwin and Lamarck) "explain the adaptation to purpose of organisms by an obscure impulse or sense of what is purpose-like; yet even with regard to man we are in the habit of saying, that one can never know what so-and-so is good for. The purpose-like is that which approves itself, and not always that which is struggled for by obscure impulses and desires. Just in the same way the beautiful is what pleases."

I had a sort of feeling as though the writer of the above might have had "Evolution, Old and New," in his mind, but went on to the next sentence, which ran -

"Erasmus Darwin's system was in itself a most significant first step in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no one can envy."

"That's me," said I to myself promptly. I noticed also the position