418 PECULIAR CONTROVERSIAL METHODS xi 



Century " last January, I doubt not that it has a 

 catastrophic importance in the estimation of its 

 author. I, on the other hand, may be permitted 

 to regard it as a mere spate ; noisy and threatening 

 while it lasted, but forgotten almost as soon as it 

 was over. Without my help, it will be judged by 

 every instructed and clear-headed reader; and 

 that is fortunate, because, were aid necessary, I 

 have cogent reasons for withholding it. 



In an article characterised by the same qualities 

 of thought and diction, entitled " A Great Lesson/ 1 

 which appeared in the " Nineteenth Century " for 

 September 1887, the Duke of Argyll, firstly, charged 

 the whole body of men of science, interested in the 

 question, with having conspired to ignore certain 

 criticisms of Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of 

 coral reefs ; and, secondly, he asserted that some 

 person unnamed had " actually induced " Mr. John 

 Murray to delay the publication of his views on 

 that subject " for two years." 



It was easy for me and for others to prove that 

 the first statement was not only, to use the Duke 

 of Argyll's favourite expression, " contrary to fact," 

 but that it was without any foundation whatever. 

 The second statement rested on the Duke of 

 Argyll's personal authority. All I could do was to 

 demand the production of the evidence for it. Up 

 to the present time, so far as I know, that evidence 

 has not made its appearance ; nor has there been 



