42 Unconscious Memory 



&c. ; and " Nous ne faisons pas attention que nous alterons 

 la philosophie," " We fail to see that thus we deprive 

 philosophy of her true character," whereas I had "We fail 

 to see that we thus rob philosophy of her true character." 

 This last was too much ; and though it might turn out that 

 Dr. Krause had quoted this passage before I had done so, 

 had used the same edition as I had, had begun two Unes 

 from the beginning of a paragraph as I had done, and that 

 the later resemblances were merely due to Mr. Dallas 

 having compared Dr. Krause's German translation of 

 Buffon with my English, and very properly made use of it 

 when he thought fit, it looked prima facie more as though 

 my quotation had been copied in English as it stood, and 

 then altered, but not quite altered enough. This, in the 

 face of the preface, was incredible ; but so many points 

 had such an unpleasant aspect, that I thought it better to 

 send for Kosmos and see what I could make out. 



At this time I knew not one word of German. On the 

 same day, therefore, that I sent for Kosmos I began to 

 acquire that language, and in the fortnight before Kosmos 

 came had got far enough forward for all practical purposes 

 — that is to say, with the help of a translation and a diction- 

 ary, I could see whether or no a German passage was the 

 same as what purported to be its translation. 



When Kosmos came I turned to the end of the article 

 to see how the sentence about mental anachronism and 

 weakness of thought looked in German. I found nothing 

 of the kind, the original article ended with some innocent 

 rhyming doggerel about somebody going on and exploring 

 something with eagle eye ; but ten lines from the end I 

 found a sentence which corresponded with one six pages 

 from the end of the English translation. After this there 

 could be little doubt that the whole of these last six English 

 pages were spurious matter. What little doubt remained 

 was afterwards removed by my finding that they had no 

 place in any part of the genuine article. I looked for the 

 passage about Coleridge's using the word " Darwinising " ; 



