:!42 DARWINIANISM. 



through ; he admits generalisations still to fail, and 

 laments the defect as yet of a crucial experiment in 

 breeding (ii. 199, 198). 



All the other experts (p. 1 77), as is also to be recollected 

 here, whose authority would be critical on the question, 

 have, with the single exception of Sir Joseph Hooker, been 

 proved to be even more equivocal in their Darwinianism 

 than Mr. Huxley. It is very emphatically so with Sir 

 Charles Lyell as the expert in chief. With Asa Gray it 

 can hardly be said to be otherwise. Carpenter need not 

 be named ; and Wallace urges exceptions, and so expresses 

 himself, that he certainly cannot be called a Darwinian 

 within the strictness of the letter. It is remarkable, 

 too, that he. speaks of "varieties" (see p. 182), and not 

 of variations. Nay, again to refer to him so, it is not 

 certain that in this respect Mr. Huxley himself is not 

 similarly minded. Perhaps, after all, it was not " care- 

 lessness" (p. 186) that led Mr. Huxley to speak of Mr. 

 Darwin's variations as though they were at once " variations 

 from their specific type " perhaps neither Mr. Huxley 

 nor Mr. Wallace fairly realised that Mr. Darwin's initial 

 variation is only that of the child from the parent (see 

 p. 270), or that (p. 271) he perpetually emphasised the 

 smallness, slightness, triflingness, casualty of the in- 

 dividual difference or variation that was to him a 

 determinant one the bird with the beak, the seals, the 

 hats, the insects, the elephant with its tusks, the bear, 

 the whale, etc. 



Nor can we feel quite sure that we ought to exonerate 

 Mr. Darwin himself from all blame here. It is only 

 through long, patient looking that the particular 

 moments in the theory have reached the clearness 

 which we should be glad to think they will be found to 

 possess in these pages. Mr. Darwin but too often 

 widens and weakens his expression into a vagueness and 



