NATURAL SELECTION CRITICISED. 325 



Mr. Darwin's medical studies are cheerfully to be borne 

 in mind. 



On the whole, we have to recollect this, that there 

 is but one purpose in the book. If you scratch the 

 apparent Frenchman that the modern Eussian is, it is 

 said, you lay bare at once the Tartar ; so Mr. Darwin, 

 by a scratch, would discover the monkey in the man. 

 One can scarcely say that he has succeeded in this. 

 But, by the same rule, I wonder if any scratching would 

 bring to sight the bushy bruin that must be hidden in 

 the hairless whale. It ought to, if we are to listen to 

 Hearne the Hunter story especially since Mr. Darwin 

 himself assures us, in the case of another such conver- 

 sion, that " inheritance would retain almost for eternity 

 some of the original structure" (ii. 335). 



And with this we must conclude in regard to the 

 book on Expression. There may be those to whom all 

 these pictures, with text, about expression proved some- 

 thing new, instructive, and entertaining ; but can it 

 be pretended that the information provided was really 

 worth the purchase of 5267 copies in a single day, the 

 first of the sale ? 



We have spoken of the latter half of the nineteenth 

 century as likely to prove the most remarkable period 

 in all English history for the feebleness of its thought ; 

 and surely if we reflect deeply, there can appear no want 

 at least of a considerable number of relative proofs, so 

 far as writing is concerned, philosophically, politically, 

 even poetically. Tennyson sold well by merit, as 

 Browning did not ; but what of the sale of Tupper by 

 favour ? 



And, after all, perhaps we are not much worse off 

 than our forebears perhaps it was always so. At all 

 events, we have always open to us this consolation : 

 That, even at the best of times, we are " mostly fools " 



