shed in 1878, says of the
two great pioneers of Evolution, that Buffon "contributed nothing to
the general doctrine of Evolution,"[379] and that Erasmus Darwin "can
hardly be said to have made any real advance on his predecessors."[380]

Professor Haeckel evidently knew little of Erasmus Darwin, and still
less, apparently, about Buffon.[381] Professor Tyndall,[382] in 1878,
spoke of Evolution as "Darwin's theory"; and I have just read Mr. Grant
Allen as saying that Evolutionism "is an almost exclusively English
impulse."[383]

Since 'Evolution, Old and New,' was published, I have observed several
of the so-called men of science--among them Professor Huxley and Mr.
Romanes--airing Buffon; but I never observed any of them do this till
within the last three years. I maintain that "men of science" were, and
still are, very ignorant concerning the history of Evolution; but,
whether they were or were not, I did not write 'Evolution, Old and New,'
for them; I wrote for the general public, who have been kind enough to
testify their appreciation of it in a sufficiently practical manner.

The way in which Mr. Charles Darwin met 'Evolution, Old and New,' has
been so fully dealt with in my book, 'Unconscious Memory;' in the
'Athenaeum,' Jan. 31, 1880; the 'St. James's Gazette,' Dec. 8, 1880; and
'Nature,' Feb. 3, 1881, that I need not return to it here, more
especially as Mr. Darwin has, by his silence, admitted that he has no
defence to make.

I have quoted by no means the moat exceptionable parts of Mr. Romanes'
article, and have given them a permanence they would not otherwise
attain, inasmuch as nothing can better show the temper of the kind of
men who are now--as I said in the body of the foregoing work--clamouring
for endowment, and who would step into the Pope's shoes to-morrow if we
would only let them.

FOOTNOTES:

[376] See p. 44, and the whole of chap. v., where I say of this
supposition, that "nothing could be conceived more foreign
to experience and common sense."

[377] 'Fortnightly Review,' March 1, 1882, pp. 344, 345.

[378] 'Saturday Review,' May 31, 1879, pp. 682-3.

[379] P. 748.

[380] _Ibid._

[381] See pp. 71-73.

[382] 'Nineteenth Century' for November, pp. 360, 361.

[383] 'Fortnightly Review,' March, 1882.

CHAPTER II.

ROME AND PANTHEISM.

Evolution would after all be a poor doctrine if it did not affect human
affairs at every touch and turn. I propose to devote the second cha