NATURAL SELECTION CRITICISED. 253 



The very thing his whole work is there to explain species 

 is always placed bodily before us. As we saw in the 

 illustration of his perpetual favourite woodpecker bird, if 

 the woodpecker disappears, the bird itself remains. If Mr. 

 Darwin has addressed himself, as we may assume, to the 

 resolution of the problem x n , is it not surprising that 

 do what he may for the n he has scarcely a thought for 

 the a? 



Now, no doubt, all that sounds fair ; and it cannot be 

 denied its own grounds. Nevertheless, to some extent, 

 Mr. Darwin already knows it, and at least fronts it. How 

 important the great naturalist Agassiz was to Darwin, a 

 letter of this latter (ii. 215) plainly declares. "I have 

 seldom been more deeply gratified than by receiving your 

 most kind present of Lake Superior I have begun to 

 read it with uncommon interest, which I see will increase 

 as I go on I confess that it was the very great honour 

 of having in my possession a work with your autograph 

 as a presentation copy, that has given me such lively 

 and sincere pleasure." These words of 1850 could 

 not be intended by Mr. Darwin to gain the favour of 

 Agassiz for the Origin published in 1859. Neither had 

 Mr. Darwin, who was only two years younger than 

 Agassiz, any cause to kow-tow to Agassiz at any date. 

 Such flattering expressions, then, were but the outcome 

 of Mr. Darwin's characteristic courtesy. In the event, 

 the opposition of Agassiz to the Origin was uncon- 

 cealed, and it did prove to Mr. Darwin " riling." He 

 (Agassiz) was reported to say (p. 268), "it is poor, 

 very poor ! " He also formally wrote against it. Mr. 

 Darwin asks Mr. Huxley, "Have you seen Agassiz's 

 weak metaphysical and theological attack on the Origin ? " 

 " Agassiz's name, no doubt, is a heavy weight against us," 

 he writes to Asa Gray (p. 333), but adds, " the whole 

 article seems to me very poor I ain surprised that 



