DARWIN AND DESCENT. 207 



Mr. Darwin was led into his false position as regards 

 natural selection by a desire to claim tlie theory of 

 d,escent with modification ; if lie claimed it in the first 

 edition, this is enough to give colour to the view which 

 I take ; but it must be remembered that descent with 

 modification remained, by the passage just quoted " my 

 theory," for thirteen years, and even when in 1869 

 and 1872, for a reason that I can only guess at, 

 " my theory" became generally "the theory," this did 

 not make it become any one else's theory. It is hard 

 to say whose or what it became, if the words are to be 

 construed technically; practically, however, with all 

 ingenuous readers, "the theory" remained as much 

 Mr. Darwin's theory as though the words " my theory " 

 had been retained, ^ and Mr. Darwin cannot be supposed 

 so simple-minded as not to have known this would be 

 the case. Moreover, it appears, from the next page 

 but one to the one last quoted, that Mr. Darwin claimed 

 the theory of descent with modification generally, even 

 to the last, for we there read, " £y my theory these 

 allied species have descended from a common parent," 

 and the " my " has been allowed, for some reason not 

 quite obvious, to survive the general massacre of Mr. 

 Darwin's "my's" which occurred in 1869 and 1872. 



Again : — 



" He who believes that each being has been created 

 as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise 

 when he has met," &c. (p. 185). 



Here the argument evidently lies between descent 

 and independent acts of creation. This appears from 

 the paragraph immediately following, which begins, 



