331 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [Ciur. XI. 



me, I venture to express my belief that, neglecting minor 

 matters, bis criticism is mainly directed to the assertion of 

 two points. 



&quot;One of these is, that I have misrepresented Mr. Darwin s 

 Mainly ad- views, and have been guilty of involuntary injustice 

 fwo puints. with respect to the natural forces which, according 

 to our great naturalist, have determined specific forms. 



&quot; The other is, that I have attributed an irreligious ten 

 dency to Mr. Darwin s writings which they do not, in fact, 

 possess; and that this is in part owing to my defective 

 knowledge, in part to early prejudices. 



&quot; Thus Mr. Wright speaks of my theological education 

 and my schooling against Democritus. It is a matter 

 of wonder to me who could have so misled Mr. Wright. 

 Though reluctant, in the extreme, to obtrude such private 

 and personal matters on the public, I must nevertheless, in 

 justice, observe, that my schooling has been of the very oppo 

 site character, and perfectly in unison with that which Mr. 

 Darwin himself would favour. Only at length, and with dif 

 ficulty, have I struggled out of that philosophy of nescience, 

 the evils and the fallacies of which are so apparent to me 

 because, at one time, its doctrines so completely possessed my 

 assent. 



&quot;With regard to Mr. Darwin s theory of the origin of 

 The first of species, I should hasten eagerly to acknowledge my 

 these. error if I had been guilty of injustice with respect to 



it, and also to thank any critic who had been so kind as to 

 call my attention to such unintentional unfairness. I must 

 confess, however, that I cannot detect that misrepresentation 

 in my Genesis of Species which Mr. Wright seems to there 

 discover. 



&quot; In common with so many others, I was, at one time, a 

 hearty and thorough-going disciple of Mr. Darwin, and I 

 accepted from him the view that Natural Selection was the 

 origin of species. It was only by degrees, and through the 

 evidence of a multitude of biological facts, that an opposite 

 conclusion was gradually forced upon me. Having come to 



