368 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



As a matter of fact, I do not see any greater ten- 

 dency to acquiesce in Mr. Darwin's claim on behalf of 

 natural selection than there was a few years ago, but 

 on the contrary, that discontent is daily growing. To 

 say nothing of the Rev. J. J. Murphy and Professor 

 Mivart, the late Mr. G. H. Lewes did not find the objec- 

 tion a superficial one, nor yet did he find it disappear 

 " with a little familiarity " ; on the contrary, the more 

 familiar he became with it the less he appeared to like 

 it. I may even go, without fear, so far as to say that 

 any writer who now uses the expression "natural 

 selection," writes himself down thereby as behind the 

 age. It is with great pleasure that I observe Mr. 

 Francis Darwin in his recent lecture * to have kept 

 clear of it altogether, and to have made use of no ex- 

 pression, and advocated no doctrine to which either 

 Dr. Erasmus Darwin or Lamarck would not have readily 

 assented. I think I may affirm confidently that a few 

 years ago any such lecture would have contained re- 

 peated reference to Natural Selection. For my own 

 part I know of few passages in any theological writer 

 which please me less than the one which I have above 

 followed sentence by sentence. I know of few which 

 should better serve to show us the sort of danger we 

 should run if we were to let men of science get the 

 upper hand of us. 



Natural Selection, then, is only another way of 



saying " Nature." Mr. Darwin seems to be aware of 



this when he writes, " Nature, if I may be allowed to 



personify the natural preservation or survival of the 



* 'Nature,' March 14 and 21, 1878. 



