The truth is that no plea, except that of total ignorance of the literature of the subject, can excuse the errors cited, and that the "Reign of Terror" is a purely subjective phenomenon.
(4) The letter in "Nature" for the 17th of November, 1887, to which I am referred, contains neither substantiation, nor retractation, of statements 1 and 2. Nevertheless, it repeats number 3. The Duke of Argyll says of his article that it "has done what I intended it to do. It has called wide attention to the influence of mere authority in establishing erroneous theories and in retarding the progress of scientific truth."
(5) The Duke of Argyll illustrates the influence of his fictitious "Reign of Terror" by the statement that Mr. John Murray "was strongly advised against the publication of his views in derogation of Darwin's long-accepted theory of the coral islands, and was actually induced to delay it for two years" (p.307). And in "Nature" for the 17th November, 1887, the Duke of Argyll states that he has seen a letter from Sir Wyville Thomson in which he "urged and almost insisted that Mr. Murray should withdraw the reading of his papers on the subject from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. This was in February, 1877." The next paragraph, however, contains the confession: "No special reason was assigned." The Duke of Argyll proceeds to give a speculative opinion that "Sir Wyville dreaded some injury to the scientific reputation of the body of which he was the chief." Truly, a very probable supposition; but as Sir Wyville Thomson's tendencies were notoriously anti-Darwinian, it does not appear to me to lend the slightest justification to the Duke of Argyll's insinuation that the Darwinian "terror" influenced him. However, the question was finally set at rest by a letter which appeared in "Nature" (29th of December, 1887), in which the writer says that:
"talking with Sir Wyville about 'Murray's new theory,' I asked what objection he had to its being brought before the public? The answer simply was: he considered that the grounds of the theory had not, as yet, been sufficiently investigated or sufficiently corroborated, and that therefore any immature dogmatic publication of it would do less than little service either to science or to the author of the paper."
Sir Wyville Thomson was an intimate friend of mine, and I am glad to have been afforded one more opportunity of clearing his character from the aspersions which have been so recklessly cast upon his good sense and his scientific honour.
(6) As to the "overthrow" of Darwin's theory, which, according to the Duke of Argyll, was patent to every unprejudiced person four years ago, I have recently become acquainted with a work, in which a really competent authority, [14] thoroughly acquainted with all the new lights which have been thrown upon the subject during the last ten years, pronounces the judgment; firstly, that some of the facts brought forward by Messrs. Murray and Guppy against Darwin's theory are not facts; secondly, that the others are reconcilable with Darwin's theory; and, thirdly, that the theories of Messrs. Murray and Guppy "are contradicted by a series of important facts" (p. 13).
Perhaps I had better draw attention to the circumstance that Dr. Langenbeck writes under shelter of the guns of the fortress of Strasburg; and may therefore be presumed to be unaffected by those dreams of a "Reign of Terror" which seem to disturb the peace of some of us in these islands (April, 1891).
[See, on the subject of this note, the essay entitled "An Episcopal Trilogy" in the following volume.]