PREFACE. xi 



one who had sunk so low could since have emerged 

 into, at any rate, relative respectability. Person- 

 ally, like the non-corvine personages in the In- 

 goldsby legend, I did not feel " one penny the 

 worse." Translated into several languages, the 

 book reached a wider public than I had ever hoped 

 for; being largely helped, I imagine, by the Ernul- 

 phine advertisements to which I have referred. It 

 has had the honour of being freely utilized, without 

 acknowledgment, by writers of repute; and, finally, 

 it achieved the fate, which is the euthanasia of a 

 scientific work, of being inclosed among the rubble 

 of the foundations of later knowledge and for- 

 gotten. 



To my observation, human nature has not sen- 

 sibly changed during the last thirty years. I 

 doubt not that there are truths as plainly obvious 

 and as generally denied, as those contained in 

 " Man's Place in Nature," now awaiting enuncia- 

 tion. If there is a young man of the present gen- 

 eration, who has taken as much trouble as I did 

 to assure himself that they are truths, let him 

 come out with them, without troubling his head 

 about the barking of the dogs of St. Ernulphus. 

 " Veritas prrevalebit " — some day; and, even if she 

 does not prevail in his time, he himself will be all 

 the better and the wiser for having tried to help 

 her. And let him recollect that such great reward 

 is full payment for all his labour and pains. 



" Man's Place in Nature," perhaps, may still be 



