1 86 ON THE RECEPTION OF 



long time the effect of a conspiracy of silence ; and many 

 years passed before the Academy redeemed itself from the 

 reproach that the name of Darwin was not to be found on the 

 list of its members. However, an accomplished writer, out of 

 the range of academical influences, M. Laugel, gave an excel- 

 lent and appreciative notice of the ' Origin ' in the ' Revue 

 des Deux Mondes.' Germany took time to consider ; Bronn 

 produced a slightly Bowdlerized translation of the ' Origin ' ; 

 and ' Kladderadatsch ' cut his jokes upon the ape origin of 

 man ; but I do not call to mind that any scientific notability 

 declared himself publicly in 1860.* 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 exten- 

 sive 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 evo- 

 lutionists, a priori, already, and they must have felt the dis- 

 gust 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 1860 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 con- 

 demned 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 



* However, the man who stands lutionist views. His phrase, " J'ai 



next to Darwin in his influence on enonce' les memes ide'es . . . que 



modern biologists, K. E. von Bar, M. Darwin " (vol. ii. p. 329), is 



wrote to me, in August 1860, ex- shown by his subsequent writings 



pressing his general assent to evo- to mean no more than this. 



