54Q 



ON THE RECEPTION OF 



tific notability declared himself publicly in i860.* None of 

 us dreamed that, in the course of a few years, the strength 

 (and perhaps I may add the weakness) of " Darwinismus " 

 would have its most extensive and most brilliant illustrations 

 in the land of learning. If a foreigner may presume to 

 speculate on the cause of this curious interval of silence, I 

 fancy it was that one moiety of the German biologists were 

 orthodox at any price, and the other moiety as distinctly 

 heterodox. The latter were evolutionists, a priori, already, 

 and they must have felt the disgust natural to deductive 

 philosophers at being offered an inductive and experimental 

 foundation for a conviction which they had reached by a 

 shorter cut. It is undoubtedly trying to learn that, though 

 your conclusions may be all right, your reasons for them are 

 all wrong, or, at any rate, insufficient. 



On the whole, then, the supporters of Mr. Darwin's 

 views in i860 were numerically extremely insignificant. 

 There is not the slightest doubt that, if a general council of 

 the Church scientific had been held at that time, we should 

 have been condemned by an overwhelming majority. And 

 there is as little doubt that, if such a council gathered now, 

 the decree would be of an exactly contrary nature. It would 

 indicate a lack of sense, as well as of modesty, to ascribe to 

 the men of that generation less capacity or less honesty than 

 their successors possess. What, then, are the causes which 

 led instructed and fair-judging men of that day to arrive at 

 a judgment so different from that which seems just and fair 

 to those who follow them ? That is really one of the most 

 interesting of all questions connected with the history of sci- 

 ence, and I shall try to answer it. I am afraid that in order 

 to do so I must run the risk of appearing egotistical. How- 



* However, the man who stands next to Darwin in his influence on 

 modern biologists, K. E. von Bar, wrote to me, in August 1S60, expressing 

 his general assent to evolutionist views. His phrase, "J'ai enonce les 

 memes idees . . . que M. Darwin " (vol. ii. p. 122), is shown by his subse- 

 quent writings to mean no more than this. 



