hus save the veracity of the record at the
expense of its authority; or they expend their energies in devising the
cruel ingenuities of the reconciler, and torture texts in the vain hope
of making them confess the creed of Science. But when the peine forte
et dure is over, the antique sincerity of the venerable sufferer always
reasserts itself. Genesis is honest to the core, and professes to be
no more than it is, a repository of venerable traditions of unknown
origin, claiming no scientific authority and possessing none.

As my pen finishes these passages, I can but be amused to think what a
terrible hubbub would have been made (in truth was made) about any
similar expressions of opinion a quarter of a century ago. In fact,
the contrast between the present condition of public opinion upon the
Darwinian question; between the estimation in which Darwin's views are
now held in the scientific world; between the acquiescence, or at least
quiescence, of the theologians of the self-respecting order at the
present day and the outburst of antagonism on all sides in 1858-9, when
the new theory respecting the origin of species first became known to
the older generation to which I belong, is so startling that, except
for documentary evidence, I should be sometimes inclined to think my
memories dreams. I have a great respect for the younger generation
myself (they can write our lives, and ravel out all our follies, if
they choose to take the trouble, by and by), and I should be glad to be
assured that the feeling is reciprocal; but I am afraid that the story
of our dealings with Darwin may prove a great hindrance to that
veneration for our wisdom which I should like them to display. We have
not even the excuse that, thirty years ago, Mr. Darwin was an obscure
novice, who had no claims on our attention. On the contrary, his
remarkable zoological and geological investigations had long given him
an assured position among the most eminent and original investigators
of the day; while his charming 'Voyage of a Naturalist' had justly
earned him a wide-spread reputation among the general public. I doubt
if there was any man then living who had a better right to expect that
anything he might choose to say on such a question as the Origin of
Species would be listened to with profound attention, and discussed
with respect; and there was certainly no man whose personal character
should have afforded a better safeguard against attacks, in