Essays on Life 



course of nature of the more lucky varia- 

 tions that chance occasionally purveys. Mr. 

 Wallace's words, then, in reality amount to 

 this, that the objections now made to Darwin's 

 theory apply solely to Darwin's theory, which 

 is all very well as far as it goes, but might 

 have been more easily apprehended if he had 

 simply said, " There are several objections now 

 made to Mr. Darwin's theory." 



It must be remembered that the passage 

 quoted above occurs on the first page of a 

 preface dated March 1889, when the writer 

 had completed his task, and was most fully 

 conversant with his subject. Nevertheless, it 

 seems indisputable either that he is still con- 

 fusing evolution with Mr. Darwin's theory, 

 or that he does not know when his sentences 

 have point and when they have none. 



I should perhaps explain to some readers 

 that Mr. Darwin did not modify the main 

 theory put forward, first by Buffon, to whom 

 it indisputably belongs, and adopted from him 

 by Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and many 

 other writers in the latter half of the last 



century and the earlier years of the present. 



238 



