220 Luck, or Cunning? 
bound to consider the interests of the gentleman who pays 
him than to say what he really thinks ; for surely Mr. Allen 
would not have written as he did in such a distinctly 
philosophical and scientific journal as ‘‘ Mind” without 
weighing his words, and nothing has transpired lately, 
apropos of evolution, which will account for his present 
recantation. I said in my book “ Selections,” &c., that 
when Mr. Allen made stepping-stones of his dead selves, 
he jumped upon them to some tune. I was a little scandal- 
ised then at the completeness and suddenness of the move- 
ment he executed, and spoke severely ; I have sometimes 
feared I may have spoken too severely, but his recent 
performance goes far to warrant my remarks. 
If, however, there is no dead self about it, and Mr. Allen 
has only taken a brief, I confess to being not greatly edified. 
I grant that a good case can be made out for an author’s 
doing as I suppose Mr. Allen to have done; indeed I am 
not sure that both science and religion would not gain if 
every one rode his neighbour’s theory, as at a donkey-race, 
and the least plausible were held to win; but surely, as 
things stand, a writer by the mere fact of publishing a 
book professes to be giving a bond fide opinion. The 
analogy of the bar does not hold, for not only is it perfectly 
understood that a barrister does not necessarily state his 
own opinions, but there exists a strict though unwritten 
code to protect the public against the abuses to which such 
a system must be liable. In religion and science no such 
code exists—the supposition being that these two holy 
callings are above the necessity for anything of the kind. 
Science and religion are not as business is; still, if the 
public do not wish to be taken in, they must be at some 
pains to find out whether they are in the hands of one who, 
while pretending to be a judge, is in reality a paid advocate, 
with no one’s interests at heart except his client’s, or in those 
of one who, however warmly he may plead, will say nothing 
but what springs from mature and genuine conviction. 
