36 De Vi Physica 



obviously believed that he really had, in 

 ' Natural Selection,' made the great dis- 

 covery. But after his ' discovery ' had been 

 for some time before the world, there came 

 to him, mainly, as it should seem, from 

 the perusal of a single article in a review, 

 a dim suspicion that his ' Natural Selection ' 

 was not all that he originally took it for. 

 His position was a little awkward. Having 

 announced to the world a great discovery, 

 the ripe fruit of twenty years of laborious 

 meditation, to announce that it was all a 

 mistake would be a step from the sublime 

 to the ridiculous. But he was far, even now, 

 from realising the intrinsic futility of his 

 theory. Nevertheless, he attempted to 

 change his ground, and withdrew a little 

 from his 'creative idea' This was indeed 

 to kick away the ladder by which he had 



in a lunatic asylum would be wisdom in comparison with 

 the latest views of this eminent philosopher. 



