CHAPTER X. 



NATURAL SELECTION. 



In that most deliglitful of printed books, the " Conversations 

 of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret," there is an amusing 

 anecdote which shows how distinctly the great master real- 

 ized the importance of the question of the origin of species. 

 The news of the French Eevolution of July, 1830, had 

 just reached Weimar and set the whole town in commotion. 

 In the course of the afternoon, says Soret, " I went around 

 to Goethe's. * Now,' exclaimed he to me, as I entered, * what 

 do you think of this great event ? The volcano has come to 

 an eruption ; everything is in flames, and we have no longer 

 a transaction with closed doors ! ' ' Terrible affair,' said I, 

 * but what could be expected under such outrageous circum- 

 stances, and with such a ministry, otherwise than that the 

 whole would end with the expulsion of the royal family ? ' 

 My good friend,' gravely returned Goethe, 'we seem not 

 to understand each other. I am not speaking of those 

 creatures there, but of something quite different. I am 

 speaking of the contest, so important for science, between 

 Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, which has just come to an 

 open rupture in the French Academy ! ' " At this unex- 

 pected turn of the subject poor Soret knew not what to say, 



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