WALLACE OX "DARWINISM." 75 



(even the science of it) may exceed that of the scientist both in 

 accuracy and extent. Such a course would often save the special- 

 ist from humiliation, and spare the* public the infliction of some 

 very queer science, which, not infrequently, fails to dovetail with 

 every-day facts. 



•»•» 



I 



WALLACE ON "DARWINISM." 



By the LORD BISHOP OF CAELISLE. 



HAVE read with deep interest, as doubtless have many other 

 persons, Mr. Wallace's volume entitled Darwinism, which 

 appeared in the month of March last year. No one has a higher 

 right to teach the world on this recondite subject ; and when it is 

 borne in mind that Mr. Wallace was himself an independent dis- 

 coverer of the principle associated with the name of Darwin, and 

 that, nevertheless, no sentence indicative of rivalry or jealousy — 

 in fact, no sentence laying claim to original discovery — occurs 

 throughout the book, it is impossible not to be struck with a feel- 

 ing of reverence toward a writer who combines such remarkable 

 ability with no less remarkable modesty. Reference is made to 

 this point in an article in the Contemporary Review (August, 1889) 

 by Prof. Romanes, who writes thus : 



It was in the highest degree dramatic that the great idea of natural selection 

 should have occurred independently and in precisely the same form to two work- 

 ing naturalists ; that these naturalists should have been countrymen; that they 

 should have agreed to publish their theory on the same day ; and last, but not 

 least, that, through the many years of strife and turmoil which followed, these 

 two English naturalists consistently maintained toward each other such feelings 

 of magnanimous recognition that it is hard to say whether we should most 

 admire the intellectual or the moral qualities which, in relation to their common 

 labors, they have displayed. 



Prof. Romanes further lays stress upon the fact that, whereas 

 opinion has lately tended, as between the two naturalists, toward 

 Wallace and away from Darwin, there is no sign of triumph in 

 the book. 



If ever there was an occasion (writes Prof. Romanes) when a man of science 

 might have felt himself justified in expressing a personal gratification at the turn- 

 ing of a tide of scientific opinion, assuredly such an occasion is the present ; and, 

 in whichever direction the truth may eventually be found to lie, historians of 

 science should not omit to notice that in the very hour when his life-long belief is 

 gaining so large a measure of support, Mr. Wallace quietly accepts the fact with- 

 out one word of triumph. 



It is very pleasant to read this record of forgetfulness of self 

 in the feeling of complete devotion to the cause of science and of 

 truth ; possibly instances of such self -forgetfulness are not so un- 

 common as they are sometimes supposed to be. 



