1 56 DARWINISM, 



DARWINISM, AND THE FIRST 

 VERTEBRATE. 



SIR, Your amiable and earnest correspondent does 

 not seem to understand that men like Darwin and 

 Wallace, who have spent years of patient labour and 

 thought in amassing observations of nature, and 

 grouping together the facts out of which their theories 

 have been formed, have a right to ' an air of philo- 

 sophical superiority,' if they choose to display it, when 

 questions are asked or arguments put forward which 

 imply ignorance or misconception of all they have been 

 doing in the interests of science. When Mr. Wallace 

 ' very coolly' asserts that he sees no force in an argu- 

 ment, it will as a rule be advisable for the argument 

 either to withdraw itself from the public gaze, or get 

 itself stated a little more lucidly. Again, when Mr. 

 Darwin 'rashly affirms that he has distinct evidence" 

 of a thing, it would perhaps be a good plan to get the 

 Commissioners in Lunacy to examine the astonishing 

 number of hard-headed men whom he induces to believe 

 his unfounded assertion. 



But now that I have prevailed with your corre- 

 spondent to give up ' denouncing' Darwinism, I wish 



