290 , LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



prosperity is like a jest's — in the ear of him that 

 hears it. 



Mr. Spencer would not — at least one cannot think 

 he •would — have been able to effect the revolution 

 which will henceforth doubtless be connected with 

 Mr. Darwin's name. He had been insisting on evolu- 

 tion for some years before the " Origin of Species " 

 came out, but he might as well have preached to the 

 winds, for all the visible effect that had been produced. 

 On the appearance of Mr. Darwin's book the effect 

 was instantaneous; it was like the change in the con- 

 dition of a patient when the right medicine has been 

 hit on after all sorts of things have been tried and 

 failed. Granted that it was comparatively easy for 

 Mr. Darwin, as having been born into the household 

 of one of the prophets of evolution, to arrive at con- 

 elusions about the fixity of species which, if not so 

 born, he might never have reached at all; this does 

 not make it any easier for him to have got others to 

 agree with him. Any one, again, may have money 

 left him, or run up against it, or have it run up 

 against him, as it does against some people, but it 

 is only a very sensible person who does not lose it. 

 Moreover, once begin to go behind achievement and 

 there is an end of everything. Did the world give 

 much heed to or believe in evolution before Mr. 

 Darwin's time ? Certainly not. Did we begin to 

 attend and be persuaded soon after Mr. Darwin began 

 to write ? Certainly yes. Did we ere long go over 

 en masse ? Assuredly. If, as I ^aid in " Life and 

 Habit," any one asks who taught the world to 



