Introduction 9 



Nevertheless, innocent as Mr. Darwin's opening sen- 

 tence appeared, it contained enough to have put us upon 

 our guard. When he informed us that, on his return from 

 a long voyage, " it occurred to " him that the way to 

 malie anything out about his subject was to collect and 

 reflect upon the facts that bore upon it, it should have 

 occurred to us in our turn, that when people betray a 

 return of consciousness upon such matters as this, they 

 are on the confines of that state in which other and not 

 less elementary matters will not " occur to " them. The 

 introduction of the word " patiently " should have been 

 conclusive. I will not analyse more of the sentence, but 

 will repeat the next two lines : — " After five years of 

 work, I allowed myself to speculate upon the subject, and 

 drew up some short notes." We read this, thousands of 

 us, and were bhnd. 



If Dr. Erasmus Darwin's name was not mentioned in 

 the first edition of the " Origin of Species," we should not 

 be surprised at there being no notice taken of Buffon, or 

 at Lamarck's being referred to only twice — on the first 

 occasion to be serenely waved aside, he and all his works ; ^ 

 on the second,^ to be commended on a point of detail. 

 The author of the " Vestiges of Creation " was more 

 widely known to English readers, having written more 

 recently and nearer home. He was dealt with summarily, 

 on an early and prominent page, by a misrepresentation, 

 which was silently expunged in later editions of the " Origin 

 of Species." In his later editions (I believe first in his 

 third, when 6000 copies had been already sold), Mr. 

 Darwin did indeed introduce a few pages in which he gave 

 what he designated as a " brief but imperfect sketch " of 

 the progress of opinion on the origin of species prior to the 

 appearance of his own work ; but the general impression 

 wMch a book conveys to, and leaves upon, the public is 

 conveyed by the first edition — the one which is alone, 

 with rare exceptions, reviewed ; and in the first edition 

 1 Origin of Species, ed. i., p. 242. ^ Ibid., p. 427. 



