292 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



this yearly ceremony, and conclude that the Emperors 

 of Austria are in the habit of washing poor people's 

 feet. I can understand Mr. Darwin's not having taken 

 any public notice, for example, of " Life and Habit," 

 for though I did not attack him in force in that book, 

 it was abundantly clear that an attack could not be 

 long delayed, and a man may be pardoned for not 

 doing anything to advertise the works of his oppo- 

 nents; but there is no excuse for his never having 

 referred to Professor Hering's work either in " Nature," 

 when Professor Eay Lankester first called attention to 

 it (July 13, 1876), or in some one of his subsequent 

 books. If his attitude towards those who worked 

 in the same field as himself had been the generous 

 one which his admirers pretend, he would have 

 certainly come forward, not necessarily as adopting 

 Professor Hering's theory, but still as helping it to 

 obtain a hearing. 



His not having done so is of a piece with his 

 silence about Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck 

 in the early editions of the " Origin of Species," and 

 with the meagre reference to them which is alone 

 found in the later ones. It is of a piece also with the 

 silence which Mr. Darwin invariably maintained when 

 he saw his position irretrievably damaged, as, for 

 example, by Mr. Spencer's objection already referred 

 to, and by the late Professor Pleeming Jenkin in the 

 North British Review (June 1867). Science, after all, 

 should form a kingdom which is more or less not of this 

 world. The ideal scientist should know neither self 

 nor friend nor foe — he should be able to hob-nob with 



