22 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



" You have deserted — after a start in that tram-road 

 of all solid physical truth — ^the true method of induc- 

 tion, and started us in machinery as wild, I think, as 

 Bishop Wilkins's locomotive that was to sail with us to 

 the moon." ^ 



These wild criticisms were soon set to rest by 

 Henry Fawcett's article in Macmillan's Maga- 

 zine in 1860 and by a paper read before the 

 British Association by the same author in 1861. 

 Referring to this defense, Fawcett wrote to Dar- 

 win, July 16, 1861 :— 



" I was particularly anxious to point out that the 

 method of investigation was in every respect philosoph- 

 ically correct. I was spending an evening last week 

 with our friend Mr. John Stuart Mill, and I am sure 

 you will be pleased to hear that he considers your reason- 

 ing throughout is in the most exact accordance with 

 the strict principles of logic. He also says the method 

 on investigation you have followed is the only proper 

 one to such a subject. It is easy for an antagonistic 

 reviewer, when he finds it difficult to answer your argu- 

 ments, to attempt to dispose of the whole matter by 

 uttering some such commonplace as ' This is not a 

 Baconian induction.' " 



" As far as I am personally concerned, I am sure I 

 ought to be grateful to you, for since my accident 

 nothing has given me so much pleasure as the perusal of 

 your book. Such studies are now a great resource 

 to me." == 



^ Life and Letters, II, p. 248. See also the Quarterly Review 

 for July, 1860. Sedgwick's review in the Spectator, March 24, 

 1860, contains the following passage: "... I cannot conclude 

 without expressing my detestation of the theory, because of its 

 unflinching materialism; because it has deserted the inductive 

 track, the only track that leads to physical truth; because it 

 utterly repudiates final causes, and thereby indicates a demoralized 

 understanding on the part of its advocates." Quoted in Life and 

 Letters, II, p. 298. 



' More Letters, I, pp. 189, 190. 



