by the Cuvierian classification, and insisted upon by bis followers, to the great satisfaction of the opponents of the doctrine of evolution, really had an existence in Nature. I came to the conclusion that it had none; I stated the grounds of these conclusions to those who attended my lectures in 1859-'60; a battle, which was somewhat notorious in its day, took place at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford in 1860, and turned upon Mr. Darwin's views of the evolution of man; while, in 1863, I summed up the then state of the question in a little booh, entitled "Man's Place in Nature," which did its work in several languages beside my own, and is now out of print and gone to the limbo of forgotten things: which is its proper place, now that Mr. Darwin has had leisure to state his own views more fully, though not more distinctly, than in the "Origin of Species," in the "Descent of Man."
Mr. Darwin reticent about his views respecting the origin of man! Why, for years after the publication of the "Origin of Species," one could not go to a dinner-party without hearing them; and, whether you took up the last number of Punch, or the last sermon, the chances were ten to one that there was some allusion to the "missing link."
Under these circumstances, the high moral tone assumed by the Quarterly reviewer—him of 1874, I mean—is truly edifying. Joseph Surface could not have done better. Unless I err, he is good enough to include me among the members of that school whose speculations are to bring back among us the gross profligacy of imperial Rome. This may be doubtful. But what is not doubtful is the fact that misrepresentation and falsification are the favorite weapons of Jesuitical Rome; that anonymous slander is practice, and not mere speculation; and that it is a practice, the natural culmination of which is not the profligacy of a Nero, or of a Commodus, but the secret poisonings of the papal Borgias.
I remember that when, in 1862,1 showed the proofs of "Man's Place in Nature" to a cautious and sagacious friend of mine—an expert in such matters—he had nothing to say against my arguments, but much to urge against the prudence of publishing them. Doubtless he foresaw that an unscrupulous critic, sheltered by his anonymity, might charge me with advocating the "bestiality of man," and with, thereby, endeavoring to loosen those moral bonds which hold society together. It seemed to me, however, that a man of science has no raison d'être at all, unless he is willing to face much greater risks than these for the sake of that which he believes to be true; and, further, that to a man of science such risks do not count for much—that they are by no means so serious as they are to a man of letters, for example. Happily, the reputation and real success of a votary of the physical sciences are now wholly independent of the periodicals which are pleased to call themselves "influential organs of public opinion." The only opinion he need care about, if he care for any—-
