MIVART'S INCONSISTENCY 81 



common cleverness says all that is most disagreeable. He 

 makes me the most arrogant, odious beast that ever lived. 

 I cannot understand him : I suppose that accursed religious 

 bigotry is at the root of it. Of course he is quite at liberty 

 to scorn and hate me, but why take such trouble to express 

 something more than friendship? It has mortified me 

 a good deal.' l 



On other occasions at a much later date I have 

 myself observed that there was something peculiar 

 about the poise of Mivart's mind, which seemed 

 ever inclined to pass, with abrupt transition, 

 from the extreme of an unnecessary effusiveness 

 to an unnecessarily extreme antagonism. 



Mivart's attack, contained in his book, The 

 Genesis of Species, was effectively dealt with by 

 Chauncey Wright in the North American Review 

 for July, 1871. Darwin was so pleased with this 

 defence that he obtained the author's permission 

 for an English reprint, 2 and with further additions 

 it was published as a pamphlet by John Murray 

 in 1871. A copy presented by Darwin to the 

 late J. Jenner Weir, and now in the library of 

 the Hope Department of the Oxford University 

 Museum, contains an interesting holograph letter 

 referring to the pamphlet and bearing upon the 

 controversy that followed upon the appearance of 

 Mivart's book. This letter is, by kind permission 

 of Mr. Francis Darwin, now made public : 



1 More Letters, i. 333. See also Life and Letters, iii. 146-50. 



* The pamphlet was published at Darwin's expense. For his 

 keenly appreciative letters to the author, see Life and Letters, iii. 

 145, 146. 



