i88 5 .] 
Mr. Darwin's Masterpiece. 
449 
In his Preface this most modest writer refers to the Ternate 
sassssss* *• i -“' - 
a SsV SSSr of the publication of the Or. ./ Sf . 
Scientific Characteristics. 
Of more moment than any question hitherto treated is 
fav e onr nS n lng - enqU "' y i~ DoeS Mr * Darwin ’s masterpiece 
favom Darwinism ? It may be asked how, if that work 
really shows the literary blemishes deputed above, can one 
hope to ascertain the meaning of Darwinism ? The question 
her 6 one V bu , t . 1 must mention that in the Decern- 
< < i A ls ^ Ue of thls J ourna l I ventured to offer “a 
t( d ? hl ? ltlon of Darwinism, sufficiently succintt for mnemo- 
„ meal purposes, and amply substantiated by copious 
quotations For the benefit of such as did not avail 
themselves of the hint to commit it to memory, and also for 
t ie use or those who were not subscribers prior to i88s I 
must copy it here : — 
create!? t0 ^K St , ten P re Cambrian ’ P resum ably unicellular organisms 
created, and vivified by the Creator’s breath, have arisen, without anv c'w’ 
quent mterference and we can hardly believe otherwise than without bene” 
ficent. guidance, the structures and the bodily and mental activities of a U 
mm a mp mS ’f by h the accum . u . latioa > mainly b V Natural Selection, of variations so 
minute as to be appreciable only to well-trained eyes, occurring in correlation 
but not in co-ordination with related variations, affecting single individuals 
an d innafp 1 . , V. ermitlen ‘ modification, and being determined in their nature by 
an innate idiosyncratic plasticity, the chief ultimate cause of which is pro 
bably the accumulating action of changing conditions upon the parents P but 
more especially remoter ancestors, of the varying individual. P ’ 
It has been alleged by several writers that Mr. Darwin 
repudiated Darwinism, or even natural selection. Though 
very erroneous this statement has a substratum of founda- 
tion, as I shall show at some length. 
Idiosyncratic plasticity is the starting-point of Dar- 
winism. 
ri?, r : Da 7 in pe/ceived the liability of the obliteration of these variations 
[ u ting from idiosyncratic plasticity]. In former editions he “ spoke ” as 
if the preservation “of any single strongly-marked variation” “had fre- 
quently occurred, though he “ saw ” that such preservation would be “a 
“ fn Nevertheless, until reading an able and valuable article 
( .nthe North British Review ’ (1867), [he] did not appreciate how rarely 
(lb d) vanaUons whether sl, S ht or strongly marked, could be perpetuated ” 
«( 
“ To the effcfls of intercrossing in eliminating variations of all kinds I 
shall have to recur [the subject having already been once postponed (p. 34) ; ] 
