The Excised “ My’s ” 209 
knew the main normal cause or principle that underlies 
variation, whereas I think that there is no general principle 
underlying it at all, or that even if there is, we know hardly 
anything about it. This is my distinctive feature; there 
is no deception ; I shall not consider the arguments of my 
predecessors, nor show in what respect they are insufficient ; 
in fact, I shall say nothing whatever about them. Please to 
understand that I alone am in possession of the master 
key that can unlock the bars of the future progress of 
evolutionary science ; so great an improvement, in fact, is 
my discovery that it justifies me in claiming the theory of 
descent generally, and I accordingly claim it. If you ask 
me in what my discovery consists, I reply in this ;— 
that the variations which we are all agreed accumulate are 
caused—by variation.* I admit that this is not telling you 
much about them, but it is as much as I think proper to 
say at present ; above all things, let me caution you against 
thinking that. there is any principle of general application 
underlying variation.” 
This would have been right. This is what Mr. Darwin 
would have had to have said if he had been frank with us ; 
it is not surprising, therefore, that he should have been less 
frank than might have been wished. I have no doubt that 
many a time between 1859 and 1882, the year of his death, 
Mr. Darwin bitterly regretted his initial error, and would 
have been only too thankful to repair it, but he could only 
put the difference between himself and the early evolu- 
tionists clearly before his readers at the cost of seeing his 
own system come tumbling down like a pack of cards ; 
this was more than he could stand, so he buried his face, 
ostrich-like, in the sand. I know no more pitiable figure in 
either literature or science. 
As I write these lines (July 1886) I see a paragraph in 
Nature which I take it is intended to convey the impression 
that Mr. Francis Darwin’s life and letters of his father 
* See “ Evolution Old and New,” pp. 8, 9. 
Q 
