i6 MY LIFE 



that it is true of you." The above long letter will show that 



this friendly feeling was retained by him to the last, and to 

 have thus inspired and retained it, notwithstanding our many 

 differences of opinion, 1 feel to be one of the greatest honours 

 of my life. I have myself given an estimate of Darwin's 

 work in my " Debt of Science to Darwin," published in my 

 " Natural Selection and Tropical Nature/' in 1891. But I 

 cannot here refrain from quoting a passage from Huxley's 

 striking obituary notice in Nature, summing up his work in a 

 single short paragraph : " None have fought better, and none 

 have been more fortunate than Charles Darwin. He found 

 a great truth, trodden underfoot, reviled by bigots, and ridi- 

 culed by all the world ; he lived long enough to see it, chiefly 

 by his own efforts, irrefragably established in science, insep- 

 arably incorporated with the common thoughts of men, and 

 only hated and feared by those who would revile but dare not. 

 What shall a man desire more than this ? " 



The Chief Differences of Opinion betzveen Darwin and 

 myself. — As this subject is often referred to by objectors to 

 the theory of natural selection, and it is sometimes stated that 

 I have myself given up the most essential parts of that theory, 

 I think it will be advisable to give a short statement of what 

 those differences really are, and how they affect the theory in 

 question. Our only important differences were on four sub- 

 jects, which may be considered separately. 



1. The Origin of Man as an Intellectual and Moral Being. 

 — On this great problem the belief and teaching of Darwin 

 was, that man's whole nature — physical, mental, intellectual, 

 and moral — was developed from the lower animals by means 

 of the same laws of variation and survival ; and, as a conse- 

 quence of this belief, that there was no difference in kind 

 between man's nature and animal nature, but only one of 

 degree. My view, on the other hand, was, and is, that there 

 is a difference in kind, intellectually and morally, between 

 man and other animals ; and that while his body was undoubt- 

 edly developed by the continuous modification of some ances- 

 tral animal form, some different agency, analogous to that 



