Art and Science 



H. Vines, which appeared in Nature^ Octo- 

 ber 24, 1889. I can only say that while read- 

 ing Professor Weismann's book, I feel as I do 

 when I read those of Mr. Darwin, and of a 

 good many other writers on biology whom I 

 need not name. I become like a fly in a 

 window-pane. I see the sunshine and free- 

 dom beyond, and buzz up and down their 

 pages, ever hopeful to get through them to 

 the fresh air without, but ever kept back by 

 a mysterious something, which I feel but 

 cannot either grasp or see. It was not thus 

 when I read Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and 

 Lamarck; it is not thus when I read such 

 articles as Mr. Vines's just referred to. Love 

 of self-display, and the want of singleness of 

 mind that it inevitably engenders these, I 

 suppose, are the sins that glaze the casements 

 of most men's minds; and from these, no 

 matter how hard he tries to free himself, nor 

 how much he despises them, who is altogether 

 exempt ? 



Finally, then, when we consider the im- 

 mense mass of evidence referred to briefly, 



but sufficiently, by Mr. Charles Darwin, and 



305 u 



