228 THE COMING OF AGE OF VII 
sort of under-nurse, and thus came in for my share 
of the storms which threatened the very life of 
the young creature. For some years it was 
undoubtedly warm work; but considering how 
exceedingly unpleasant the apparition of the new- 
comer must have been to those who did not fall in 
love with him at first sight, I think it is to the 
credit of our age that the war was not fiercer, and 
that the more bitter and unscrupulous forms of 
opposition died away as soon as they did. 
I speak of this period as of something past and 
gone, possessing merely an historical, I had almost 
said an antiquarian interest. For, during the 
second decade of the existence of the “ Origin of 
Species,” opposition, though by no means dead, 
assumed a different aspect. On the part of all 
those who had any reason to respect themselves, 
it assumed a thoroughly respectful character. By 
this time, the dullest began to perceive that the 
child was not likely to perish of any congenital 
weakness or infantile disorder, but was growing 
into a stalwart personage, upon whom mere goody 
scoldings and threatenings with the birch-rod 
were quite thrown away. 
In fact, those who have eahen the progress of 
science within the last ten years will bear me out 
to the full, when I assert that there is no field of - 
biological inquiry in which the influence of the 
“Origin of Species ” is not traceable ; the foremost — 
men of science in every country are either avowed — 
