PREFA TOR Y NO TE. 



1789. Burke, however, was too great a man to be 

 absurd, even in his errors ; and it is not upon record that 

 he asked uninformed persons to consider what might 

 be the effect of such an innovation as the discovery of 

 oxygen on the minds of members of the Jacobin Club. 



Professor Virchow is a politician maybe a German 

 Burke, for anything that I know to the contrary ; at 

 any rate, he knows the political value of words ; and, 

 as a man of science, he is devoid of the excuses that 

 might be made for Burke. Nevertheless, he gravely 

 . charges his hearers to " imagine what shape the theory 

 of descent takes in the head of a Socialist." 



I have tried to comply with this request, but I have 

 utterly failed to call up the dread image ; I suppose 

 because I do not sufficiently sympathise with Soci- 

 alists. All the greater is my regret that Professor Yir- 

 chow did not himself unfold the links of the hidden 

 bonds which unite evolution with revolution, and bind 

 together the community of descent with the commu- 

 nity of goods. 



Professor Yirchow is, I doubt not, an accomplished 

 English scholar. Let me commend the " Eejected 

 Addresses " to his attention. For since the brothers 

 Smith sang 



" Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise," 

 Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies, 



there has been nothing in literature at all comparable 



