198 DAKWINIANISM. 



fueling that he was twice as' ingenious and clever as 

 myself ; but when I feel that he is about a dozen times 

 ray superior, even in the master art of wriggling, I feel 

 aggrieved." To compilation under hypothesis, wriggling, 

 of what small account soever, is evidently a necessity. 

 That Mr. Darwin could wriggle, or propose to wriggle, 

 or even laugh at the proposition to wriggle, has at least 

 some assonance to the Carlo-Darwinian strand in ques- 

 tion : it may be allowed at least to strike some slight 

 vibration into the filament of wile. 



I have referred elsewhere to accentuation on the part 

 of Mr. Darwin " in his usual colouring way." Thus 

 Mr. Darwin, as, to our knowledge, he can readily resolve 

 into a very flood of praise, so he is apt, even generally 

 it may be, to rise into the excess of an enhancing phrase. 

 He says once (i. 82), as we have seen, for example, " It 

 was evident that such facts as well as many others 

 could only be explained on the supposition that species 

 gradually become modified ; " and on the opposite page 

 this : " I happened to read for amusement Malthus on 

 Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the 

 struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from 

 long-continued observation of the habits of animals and 

 plants," etc. Of course, there can be no difficulty of 

 wriggling out of the supposed colouring in either of 

 these cases. Mr. Darwin undoubtedly had other facts ; 

 but, in the circumstances, the facts of suggestion being 

 apparently complete, and these "many others" quite 

 unnamed, does not the phrase just seem to slip in by 

 oar on the trick of custom ? Nor, in the other case, 

 does the fact of Mr. Darwin's long-continued observation 

 cause the stop of a moment. Only, it is not so certain 

 but that all that is here in reference, is to be attributed 

 to this same reading of Malthus. As we shall presently 

 see, the struggle for existence is not a doctrine of the 



