296 LESSONS FROM NATUEE. [CHAP. IX. 



to God such as no brute possesses. We can also claim 

 as more or less on our side even one of the originators 

 of the theory of &quot; natural selection &quot; itself, and his followers ; 

 for Mr. Wallace, if I understand him rightly, teaches us 

 that for the evolution of man s body special spiritual agencies 

 were required, which were not needed for the rest of the 

 organic world. So that, according to this view, man is 

 marked off from all the rest of nature by a very special 

 distinction. 



And here, the name of Mr. Wallace having been mentioned, 

 Mr. wai- I must refer to Professor Huxley s criticism on a 

 t^Sri! m8 remark made through my desire to do justice to 

 Mr. Wallace. It is an undoubted fact that there 

 are many men who, if they had thought out natural selection 

 simultaneously with Mr. Darwin, would have clamor 

 ously sought a recognition of the fact, and have lost no 

 opportunity of asserting simultaneity. No one can affirm 

 that Mr. Wallace has shown the faintest inclination of the 

 kind, while no one can deny that if he had followed the 

 clamorous path, his name would have been more widely 

 known and more popularly associated with natural selection 

 than has been, in fact, the case. 



It is a gratuitous assertion on the part of Professor 

 Huxley to say I suggested that Mr. Darwin s eminence is 

 due to Mr. Wallace s modesty in any other sense than as 

 now explained, namely, that had Mr. Wallace put himself 

 more prominently forward, he would have been seen more 

 distinctly by the popular eye an assertion no one can 

 question. 



As a fact, I believe that Mr. Wallace, in the passage 

 quoted by Professor Huxley, allows his modesty to deceive 

 him. From what I know of Mr. Wallace, I venture to affirm 

 he underrates his powers, and I am convinced he could have 

 written as good a defence of natural selection as even the 

 Origin of Species. There are not wanting those who, 

 though they have carefully studied Mr. Darwin s work, only 

 fully understood his theory when presented to their minds 



