30 DAUWIXIANISM. 



dered at ; for in that kind he had himself published 

 only his Inquiry into tlie Relation of Cause and Effect 

 (the success of which, indeed, on the supposition 

 that here the previous criticism was right, may be 

 thought to have been only too good). It was only of his 

 poetry that Brown himself could, for the most part, have 

 thought at any time that the idea of neglect occurred 

 to him. And of his attitude in that regard, his bio- 

 grapher observes : " It is delightful to witness the calm 

 confidence with which Dr. Brown anticipates the fame 

 which, though he was not in this world to enjoy it, was 

 to be ! " " There is a moral sublimity in the noble spirit 

 with which he repels the intrusion of scorn and dis- 

 content, and expresses his conviction of the substantial 

 benefit that he had derived from the severity and in- 

 justice of his contemporaries ! " 



What was the character of the Dr. Brown who pre- 

 sumed to address to the author of Zoonomia his own 

 Observations on it, will now be plain. We have to bear 

 in mind here, however, that it was not the distinguished 

 " Professor " whom Dr. Darwin had to meet, but only an 

 unknown youth with an essay written at the age of 

 eighteen. This youth, no doubt, writes with quite an 

 exemplary politeness of dignity ; but still it is a youth 

 that writes, and he writes with all the self-complacency 

 of the leader of the mutual improvement society. I 

 know not that what he writes can be called specially 

 good. There are not a few weak spots in the fortress of 

 Zoonomia, and the future philosopher is able to confront 

 them with that acuteness that is essential to his nature. 

 Perhaps the best hit I remember is this. Almost the 

 main position of Dr. Darwin is that " ideas are motions 

 of the extremity of some nerve of sense ; " they are " a 

 contraction, or motion, or configuration of the fibres whicli 

 constitute the immediate organ of sense." Now, that 



