io8 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



\\ith a more ardent and eager spirit of inquiry, than 

 Darwin to enable him to achieve the task of discover- 

 ing the modus operandi of Nature in effecting her 

 evolutionary work, if indeed the achieving of that 

 task is attainable by present-day science. 



Nevertheless he failed utterly in his endeavour to 

 discover Nature's evolutional method. But his failure 

 was concealed from his contemporaries, whose eyes 

 were dazzled by his apparently exhaustive knowledge 

 of the whole field of research explored by the botanist 

 and the natural historian ; and quite as much by the 

 spell and glamour of his literary style, nervous and 

 direct, free from affectations, abounding in felicitous 

 phraseology, glowing, as his readers were constrained 

 to feel, with the enthusiasm and unlimited self-con- 

 fidence of one who had a great message to deliver to 

 the world. When Darwin in his great work anywhere 

 confessed to finding himself at fault or doubtful as to 

 anything, his admirers were staggered, and held up 

 their hands, in almost reproachful amazement, at the 

 excessive modesty and humility of this man of bound- 

 less knowlege and universal insight. Those who still 

 ventured to ask if his theory was not purely 

 hypothetical, made up of assumptions unattached to 

 the phenomena of Nature, were pitilessly bludgeoned 

 with indignant scorn, and denounced as too stupid to 

 admit of being reasoned with. 



It was darkly hinted of objectors, that they still 

 believed in a God, that they still saw design apparent 

 in " the infinitely close-fitting and complex mutual 



