DARWIN'S VARIATIONS. 187 



manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several 

 large classes of facts above specified." If Mr. Darwin 

 found the large classes of facts " satisfactorily " explained 

 by the survival of the luckiest irrespectively of the 

 cunning which enabled them to turn their luck to 

 account, he must have been easily satisfied. Perhaps 

 he was in the same frame of mind as when he said * 

 that " even an Imperfect answer " " would be satisfac- 

 tory," but surely this is being thankful for small mercies. 

 On the following page Mr. Darwin says : — " Although 

 I am fully " (why " fully " ?) " convinced of the truth 

 of the views given in this volume under the form of 

 an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experi- 

 enced naturalists," &c. I have not quoted the whole of 

 Mr. Darwin's sentence, but it implies that any experi- 

 enced naturalist who remained unconvinced was an 

 old-fashioned, prejudiced person. I confess that this 

 is what I rather feel about the experienced naturalists 

 who differ in only too great numbers from myself, but 

 I did not expect to find so much of the old Adam 

 remaining in Mr. Darwin ; I did not expect to find him 

 support me in the belief that naturalists are made of 

 much the same stuff as other people, and, if they are 

 wise, will look upon new theories with distrust until they 

 find them becoming generally accepted. I am not sure 

 that Mr. Darwin is not just a little bit flippant here. 



Sometimes I ask myself whether it is possible that, 



not being convinced, I may be an experienced naturalist 



after all; at other times, when I read Mr. Darwin's 



works and those of his eulogists, I wonder whether 



"* Animals and Plants nnder Domestication, vol. ii. p. 367, ed. 1875. 



