The Excised “ My’s” 203 
speaks of “my theory,” and then shortly afterwards of 
“descent with modification,” under such circumstances 
that no one who had not been brought up in the school of 
Mr. Gladstone could doubt that the two expressions 
referred to the same thing. He seems to have felt that he 
must be a poor wriggler if he could not wriggle out of this ; 
give him any loophole, however small, and Mr. Darwin 
could trust himself to get out through it; but he did not 
like saying what left no loophole at all, and “ my theory 
of descent with modification’ closed all éxits so firmly 
that it is surprising he should ever have allowed himself 
to use these words. As I have said, Mr. Darwin only used 
this direct categorical form of claim in one place ; and even 
here, after it had stood through three editions, two of 
‘which had been largely altered, he could stand it no longer, 
and altered the “‘ my ” into “ the ” in 1866, with the fourth 
edition of the ‘“‘ Origin of Species.” 
This was the only one of the original forty-five my's 
that was cut out before the appearance of the fifth edition in 
1869, and its excision throws curious light upon the working 
of Mr. Darwin’s mind. The selection of the most categorical 
my out of the whole forty-five, shows that Mr. Darwin knew 
all about his my’s, and, while seeing reason to remove this, 
held that the others might very well stand. He even left 
“On my view of descent with modification,’* which, 
though more capable of explanation than “‘ my theory,” 
&c., still runs it close ; nevertheless the excision of even a 
single my that had been allowed to stand through such 
‘close revision as those to which the “‘ Origin of Species”’ 
had been subjected betrays uneasiness of mind, for it is 
‘impossible that even Mr. Darwin should not have known 
that though the my excised in 1866 was the most technically 
categorical, the others were in reality just as guilty, though 
no tower of Siloam in the shape of excision fell upon them. 
If, then, Mr. Darwin was so uncomfortable about this one 
* Page 454, ed.i. 
