72 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



wrote it out in extenso, and I believe that it was read by 

 Hooker some years before E. Forbes published his celebrated 

 memoir* on the subject. In the very few points in which 

 we differed, I still think that I was in the right. I have 

 never, of course, alluded in print to my having independently 

 worked out this view. 



Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I 

 was at work on the ' Origin,' as the explanation of the wide 

 difference in many classes between the embryo and the adult 

 animal, and of the close resemblance of the embryos within 

 the same class. No notice of this point was taken, as far as 

 I remember, in the early reviews of the ' Origin,' and. I recol- 

 lect expressing my surprise on this head in a letter to Asa 

 Gray. Within late years several reviewers have given the 

 whole credit to Fritz Miiller and Hackel, who undoubtedly 

 have worked it out much more fully, and in some respects 

 more correctly than I did. I had materials for a whole chap- 

 ter on the subject, and I ought to have made the discussion 

 longer ; for it is clear that I failed to impress my readers ; 

 and he who succeeds in doing so deserves, in my opinion, all 

 the credit. 



This leads me to remark that I have almost always been 

 treated honestly by my reviewers, passing over those without 

 scientific knowledge as not worthy of notice. My views have 

 often been grossly misrepresented, bitterly opposed and ridi- 

 culed, but this has been generally done, as I believe, in good 

 faith. On the whole I do not doubt that my works have been 

 over and over again greatly overpraised. I rejoice that I have 

 avoided controversies, and this I owe to Lyell, who many 

 years ago, in reference to my geological works, strongly ad- 

 vised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely 

 did any good and caused a miserable loss of time and temper. 



Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that 

 my work has been imperfect, and when I have been con- 

 temptuously criticised, and even when I have been over- 



* ' Geolog. Survey Mem.,' 1846. 



