318 THE COMING OF AGE OF 



apparition of the new-comer must have been to those 

 who did not fall in love with him at first sight, I think 

 it is to the credit of our age that the war was not fiercer, 

 and that the more bitter and unscrupulous forms of 

 opposition died away as soon as they did. 



I speak of this period as of something past and 

 gone, possessing merely an historical, I had almost 

 said an antiquarian interest. For, during the second 

 decade of the existence of the " Origin of Species," 

 opposition, though by no means dead, assumed a differ- 

 ent aspect. On the part of all those who had any 

 reason to respect themselves, it assumed a thoroughly 

 respectful character. By this time, the dullest began to 

 perceive that the child was not likely to perish of any 

 congenital weakness or infantile disorder, but was grow- 

 ing into a stalwart personage, upon whom mere goody 

 scoldings and threatenings with the birch-rod were 

 quite thrown away. 



In fact, those who have watched the progress of sci- 

 ence within the last ten years will bear me out to the 

 full, when I assert that there is no field of biological 

 inquiry in which the influence of the " Origin of Spe- 

 cies " is not traceable ; the foremost men of science in 

 every country are either avowed champions of its lead- 

 ing doctrines, or at any rate abstain from opposing 

 them ; a host of young and ardent investigators seek 

 for and find inspiration and guidance in Mr. Darwin's 

 great work; and the general doctrine of evolution, to 

 one side of which it gives expression, obtains, in the 



