244 Luck, or Cunning ? 
I should advise them to be even less hasty in basing it upon 
the assumption that to secure a powerful literary backing 
is a matter within the compass of any one who chooses to 
undertake it. No one who-has not a strong social position 
should ever advance a new theory, unless a life of hard 
fighting is part of what he lays himself out for. It was one 
of Mr. Darwin’s great merits that he had a strong social 
position, and had the good sense to know how to profit 
by it. The magnificent feat which he eventually achieved 
was unhappily tarnished by much that detracts from the 
splendour that ought to have attended it, but a magnificent 
feat it must remain. 
Whose work in this imperfect world is not tarred and 
tarnished by something that detracts from its ideal charac- 
ter ? It is enough that a man should be the right man in 
the right place, and this Mr. Darwin pre-eminently was. If 
he had been more like the ideal character which Mr. Allen 
endeavours to represent him, it is not likely that he would 
have been able to do as much, or nearly as much, as he 
actually did; he would have been too wide a cross with 
his generation to produce much effect upon it. Original 
thought is much more common than is generally believed. 
Most people, if they only knew it, could write a good book 
or play, paint a good picture, compose a fine oratorio; but 
it takes an unusually able person-to get the book well 
reviewed, persuade a manager to bring the play out, sell 
the picture, or compass the performance of the oratorio ; 
indeed, the more vigorous and original any one of these 
things may be, the more difficult will it prove to even bring. 
if before the notice of the public. The error of most original 
people is in being just a trifle too original. It was in his. 
business qualities—and these, after all, are the most 
essential to success, that Mr. Darwin showed himself so 
superlative. These are not only the most essential to suc- 
cess, but it is only by blaspheming the world in a way which 
no good citizen of the world will do, that we can deny 
