PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. 395 



commented on in other journals. Glances from it to an 

 Address delivered by me before the Midland Institute in 

 the autumn of 1877, and published in this volume, were 

 very frequent. Professor Virchow was held up to me in 

 some quarters as a model of philosophic caution, who 

 by his reasonableness reproved my rashness, and by his 

 depth reproved my shallowness. With true theologic 

 courtesy I was sedulously emptied, not only of the 

 * principles of scientific thought,' but of ' common mod- 

 esty ' and ' common sense.' And though I am indebted 

 to Professor Clifford for recalling in the ' Nineteenth 

 Century ' for April the public mind in this connection 

 from heated fancy to sober fact, I do not think a brief 

 additional examination of Virchow's views, and of my 

 relation to them, will be out of place here. 



The key-note of his position is struck in the preface 

 to the excellent English translation of his lecture a 

 preface written expressly by himself. 'Nothing,' he 

 says, ' was farther from his intention than any wish to 

 disparage the great services rendered by Mr. Darwin to 

 the advancement of biological science, of which no one 

 has expressed more admiration than himself. On the 

 other hand, it seemed high time to him to enter an en- 

 ergetic protest against the attempts that are made to 

 proclaim the problems of research as actual facts, and 

 the opinions of scientists as established science.' On 

 the ground, among others, that it promotes the per- 

 nicious delusions of the Socialist, Virchow considers the 

 theory of evolution dangerous; but his fidelity to truth 

 is so great that he would brave the danger and teach the 

 theory, if it were only proved. ' However dangerous 

 the state of things might be, let the confederates be as 

 mischievous as they might, still I do not hesitate to say 

 that from the moment when we had become convinced 

 that the evolution theory was a perfectly established 

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