4 DARWINISM. 



of the serpent and the fiery courage of the lion 1 . To 

 this sense of an intimate union between man and the 

 rest of the animate creation have the writers of fahles 

 in all ages appealed, while imparting their lessons of 

 prudence and virtue under the guise of transactions 

 between birds and beasts and trees of the forest. 



It is well known that after the discovery of almost 

 every great truth a sort of feeling or instinct of it 

 can be traced back in obscure hints, in chance expres- 

 sions, in vague guesses, in flights of imagination, so 

 that people very soon begin to fancy that they have 

 all along understood and maintained the veiy theory, 

 which, on its first appearance, they violently rejected 

 as something false and even vicious. Darwinism has 

 this characteristic of truth, that it has often been 

 obscurely anticipated. It has this other characteristic, 

 that its fiercest opponents have already begun insensibly 

 to adopt its conclusions, and to speak its language, to 

 opine, even, that the credit of its promulgation belongs 

 to themselves. 



In Mr. Darwin's own historical sketch of the rise and 

 progress of his doctrine, he does full justice to those 

 who have preceded and who have worked with him in 

 bringing it to light and in establishing its foundations. 

 The opinion that species originate, not by successive 

 miraculous interpositions or acts of creation, but by 



1 Horace, Odes, I. xvi. 13 : 



Fertur Prometheus addere principi 

 Limo coactus particulam nndique 

 Desectam, et insani leonis 

 Vim stomacho apposuisse nostro. 



