Thou canst not, Zealotry, as blind as hot,
Truth's champion slay, however hard thou hittest.
Darwin outlives detraction. Is this not
"Survival of the fittest"?
When Darwin died in April, 1882, Punch had entered on a phase in which the claims of science to solve the riddle of the universe excited his misgiving, and his obituary lines are of a non-committal order, save for one admirable couplet:—
Recorder of the long Descent of Man
And a most living witness of his rise.
There are no reserves in his valediction to Henry Fawcett in November, 1884:—
No braver conquest o'er ill fortune's flout