$2.1.8.C Proceedings of the Ninth [N.S., XVIII, 
fic research than in literature. If Shakespeare, as some of my 
younger colleagues would argue, was justified in appropriating 
a commonplace plot and transmuting it into a work of genius, 
we also are justified in using the ideas of other as our own. 
Unfortunately few of us are Shakespeares; or Darwins. Dar- 
win was one of the most modest of men, and always most 
scrupulous in acknowledging assistance of any kind, even, or 
perhaps especially, from those whose lights were much less 
than his own. In acknowledging help, whether from the 
written or the spoken word, we cannot do better than accept 
the introductory part of the Origin of Species as our guide. 
But this does not dispose of the more general question of 
plagiarism. How much may be legitimately appropriated, or 
may anything be appropriated at all? In the Roman Church 
St. Alphonso of Ligouri, the one modern Doctor of the Church, 
is accepted as the final referee on ethical questions. He was 
bold enough to draw up a tariff of mortal sin in theft. He 
ruled that in certain circumstances a respectable man who 
stole a shilling from a working man or fourteen shillings from 
a crowned head, did not commit a mortal sin; but that to 
steal even a few farthings from a beggar was always a mortal 
sin. In scientific ethics we bave no such authority as St. 
Alphonso; but the rule that nothing whatever should be taken 
from any living person without due acknowledgment is a good 
one. We must steal not at all, either from king or beggar. 
There are, however, in science as in literature many ideas and 
to an author, should be attributed correctly. For example, 
the saying that a practical man practises the follies of his 
ancestors is often attributed to Huxley, but really emanated 
in the first instance from Disraeli, in whose Coningsby it is 
placed, with many other self-evident sentiments, in the mout 
things ina clear and appropriate manner. It is not appropriate 
to couch a plain statement of facts in highly figurative OF ela- 
