“They” (the elder Darwin and Lamarck) “explain the adaptation to purpose of organisms by an obscure impulse or sense of what is purpose-like; yet even with regard to man we are in the habit of saying, that one can never know what so-and-so is good for. The purpose-like is that which approves itself, and not always that which is struggled for by obscure impulses and desires. Just in the same way the beautiful is what pleases.”
I had a sort of feeling as though the writer of the above might have had “Evolution, Old and New,” in his mind, but went on to the next sentence, which ran—
“Erasmus Darwin’s system was in itself a most significant first step in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no one can envy.”
“That’s me,” said I to myself promptly. I noticed also the position in which the sentence stood, which made it both one of the first that would be likely to catch a reader’s eye, and the last he would carry away with him. I therefore expected to find an open reply to some parts of “Evolution, Old and New,” and turned to Mr. Darwin’s preface.
To my surprise, I there found that what I had been reading could not by any possibility refer to me, for the preface ran as follows:—
“In the February number of a well-known German scientific journal, Kosmos, [39] Dr. Ernest Krause published a sketch of the ‘Life of Erasmus Darwin,’ the author of the ‘Zoonomia,’ ‘Botanic Garden,’ and other works. This article bears the title of a ‘Contribution to the History of the Descent Theory’; and Dr. Krause has kindly allowed my brother Erasmus and myself to have a translation made of it for publication in this country.”
Then came a note as follows:—
“Mr. Dallas has undertaken the translation, and his scientific reputation, together with his knowledge of German, is a guarantee for its accuracy.”
I ought to have suspected inaccuracy where I found so much consciousness of accuracy, but I did not. However this may be, Mr. Darwin pins himself down with every circumstance of preciseness to giving Dr. Krause’s article as it appeared in Kosmos,—the whole article, and nothing but the article. No one could know this better than Mr. Darwin.
On the second page of Mr. Darwin’s preface there is a small-type note saying that my work, “Evolution, Old and New,” had appeared since the publication of Dr. Krause’s article. Mr. Darwin thus distinctly precludes his readers from supposing that any passage they might meet with could have been written in reference to, or by the light of, my book. If anything appeared condemnatory of that book, it was an undesigned coincidence, and would show how little worthy of consideration I must be when my opinions were refuted in advance by one who could have no bias in regard to them.