MOEALS AND MOEAL SENTIMENTS. 



IF a writer who discusses unsettled questions takes up 

 every gauntlet thrown down to him, polemical writing 

 will absorb much of his energy. Having a power of 

 work which unfortunately does not suffice for executing 

 with any thing like due rapidity the task I have under 

 taken, I have made it a policy to avoid controversy as 

 much as possible, even at the cost of being seriously mis 

 understood. Hence it happened that, when, in Macmil- 

 larts Magazine for July, 1869, Mr. Richard Hutton pub 

 lished, under the title of &quot; A Questionable Parentage for 

 Morals,&quot; a criticism upon a doctrine of mine, I decided 

 to let his misrepresentations remain unnoticed until, in 

 the course of my work, I arrived at the stage where, by a 

 full exposition of this doctrine, they would be set aside. 

 It did not occur to me that, in the mean time, these erro 

 neous statements, accepted as true statements, would be 

 repeated by other writers, and my views commented upon 

 as untenable. This, however, has happened. In more 

 periodicals than one, I have seen it asserted that Mr. 

 Hutton has effectually disposed of my hypothesis. Sup 

 posing that this hypothesis has been rightly expressed by 

 Mr. Hutton, Sir John Lubbock, in his &quot; Origin of Civili 

 zation,&quot; etc., has been led to express a partial dissent ; 

 which I think he would not have expressed had my own 

 exposition been before him. Mr. Mivart, too, in his 



