i FANATICAL DARWINIANS 17 



opinion it can have neither part nor lot 

 in this matter. He insists that the corre- 

 lated changes are so numerous and so 

 remote that the greater part of them 

 cannot be ascribed (even) in any degree 

 to the mere selection of favourable varia- 

 tions. 1 Then facing the opponents 

 whose mingled credulities and increduli- 

 ties he has so offended, he rebukes their 

 fanaticisms according to a well-known 

 formula: " Nowadays," he says, "most 

 naturalists are more Darwinian than Mr. 

 Darwin himself." 2 



This is most true ; and Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer need not be the least sur- 

 prised. All this happens according 

 to a law. When a great man dies, 

 leaving behind him some new idea 

 new either in itself or in the use he 

 makes of it it is almost invariably seized 

 upon and ridden to the death by the 



1 P. 574- 2 P. 584. 



