MELDOLA AND MULLEE'S THEORY 129 



and to find the means for its presentation to 

 English naturalists.'^ Of the hjrpothesis itself 

 Darwin wrote, ' F. Miiller's view of the mutual 

 protection was quite new to me.'^ The hypothesis 

 of Mullerian Mimicry was at first strongly 

 opposed. Bates himself could never make up his 

 mind to accept it. As the Fellows were walking 

 out of the meeting at which Professor Meldola 

 explained the hypothesis, an eminent entomolo- 

 gist, now deceased, was heard to say to Bates : 

 ' It's a case of save me from my friends ! ' The 

 new ideas encountered and still encounter to a 

 great extent the diiBculty that the theory of 

 Bates had so completely penetrated the literature 

 of natural history. The present writer has 

 observed that naturalists who have not thoroughly 

 absorbed the older hypothesis are usually far 

 more impressed by the newer one than are those 

 whose allegiance has already been rendered. The 

 acceptance of Natural Selection itself was at first 

 hindered by similar causes, as Darwin clearly 

 recognized : — 



'If you argue about the non-acceptance of Natural 

 Selection, it seems to me a very striking fact that the New- 

 tonian theory of gravitation, which seems to every one now so 

 certain and plain, was rejected by a man so extraordinarily 

 able as Leibnitz. The truth will not penetrate a preoccupied 

 mind." 



' Charles Darwin and the theory of Natural Selection, 214. 



' Ibid., 213. 



» To Sir J. Hooker, July 28, 1868, More Letters, i. 30&. See also: 

 the letter to A. R. WaUace, April 30, 1868, in Moi-e Letters, ii. 77, 

 lines 6-8 from top. 



K 



