IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 147 



spent the best part of three years among coral- 

 reefs and to have made that attempt ; and, when 

 Mr. Murray's work appeared, I said to myself that 

 until I had two or three months to give to the 

 renewed study of the subject in all its bearings, I 

 must be content to remain in a condition of sus- 

 pended judgment. In the meanwhile, the man 

 who would be voted by common acclamation as the 

 most competent person now living to act as umpire, 

 has delivered the verdict I have quoted ; and, to 

 go no further, has fully justified the hesitation I 

 and others may have felfc about expressing an 

 opinion. Under these circumstances, it seems to 

 me to require a good deal of courage to say " no 

 serious reply has ever been attempted " ; and to 

 chicle the men of science, in lofty tones, for their 

 " reluctance to admit an error" which is not 

 admitted ; and for their " slow and sulky acqui- 

 escence" in a conclusion which they have the 

 gravest warranty for suspecting. 

 Second : 



Darwin himself had lived to hear of the new solution, and, 

 with that splendid candour which was eminent in him, his mind, 

 though now grown old in his own early convictions, was at least 

 ready to entertain it, and to confess that serious doubts had been 

 awakened as to the truth of his famous theory (p. 305). 



I wish that Darwin's splendid candour could 

 be conveyed by some description of spiritual 

 " microbe " to those who write about him. I am 

 not aware that Mr. Darwin ever entertained 



