284 



THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 



[i860. 



" But I verily believe that come what will, the part which 

 England may play in the battle is a grand and a noble one. 

 She may prove to the world that, for one people, at any rate, 

 despotism and demagogy are not the necessary alternatives 

 of government ; that freedom and order are not incompatible ; 

 that reverence is the handmaid of knowledge ; that free 

 discussion is the life of truth, and of true unity in a nation. 



" Will England play this part ? That depends upon how 

 you, the public, deal with science. Cherish her, venerate her, 

 follow her methods faithfully and implicitly in their applica- 

 tion to all branches of human thought, and the future of this 

 people will be greater than the past. 



" Listen to those who would silence and crush her, and I 

 fear our children will see the glory of England vanishing like 

 Arthur in the mist ; they will cry too late the woful cry of 

 Guinever : 



; It was my duty to have loved the highest ; 

 It surely was my profit had I known ; 

 It would have been my pleasure had I seen.' "] 



C. Darwin to C. Lyell. 



Down [February 15th, i860]. 



... I am perfectly convinced (having read this morning) 

 that the review in the ' Annals ' * is by Wollaston ; no one 

 else in the world would have used so many parentheses. I 



* Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist, 

 third series, vol. 5, p. 132. My 

 father has obviously taken the ex- 

 pression " pestilent " from the fol- 

 lowing passage (p. 13S) : " But who 

 is this Nature, we have a right to 

 ask, who has such tremendous 

 power, and to whose efficiency such 

 marvellous performances are as- 

 cribed ? What are her image and 

 attributes, when dragged from her 

 wordy lurking-place ? Is she ought 



but a pestilent abstraction, like dust 

 cast in our eyes to obscure the 

 workings of an Intelligent First 

 Cause of all ? " The reviewer pays 

 a tribute to my father's candour, 

 " so manly and outspoken as almost 

 to ' cover a multitude of sins.' " 

 The parentheses (to which allusion 

 is made above) are so frequent as 

 to give a characteristic appearance 

 to Mr. Wollaston's pages. 



