in the excitement and general attention which must be attributed to Mr. Wallace. Mr. Darwin himself has again and again come to the front to declare that Mr. Wallace" has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions" as himself "on the origin of species, that "the theory of Natural Selection is promulgated by Mr. Wallace with admirable force and clearness." On the Waterloo day of 1858, he encloses to Lyell a communication from Mr. Wallace, in which a theory to his mind so very similar to his own (as yet unpublished) seems to have taken away his very breath in surprise. "I never saw a more striking coincidence," he cries; "if Wallace had my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters." Of course for credence and acceptance, whether before the court of the law or the court of the public, it is an enormous advance when a second witness has come forward with the same story as a first. A first man is himself, in fact, a new man when he is supported by a second. That, then, is what Mr. Wallace was to Mr. Darwin; and the public interest, consequently, went on increasing in a more than geometrical ratio.

CHAPTER III.

WHAT LED TO THE SUCCESS- CONTINUED.

WITH all before it that has now been detailed, what could the public be expected to think? The most powerful scientific trumpets that, in these islands, could be blown, were blown--before the book. The most powerful popular trumpets that, in these islands, could be blown, were blown -after the book. And now what new, strange, and wonderful discovery the book itself described, that new, strange, and wonderful discovery, another man, a great man, a scientific man, an expert-an expert who had been himself to see corroborated and confirmed. And new, strange, and wonderful indeed, the discovery was. All life that was on this earth, in the air above it, or in the waters under it elephants and mice, minnows and whales, vultures, sparrows, and midges-had come, all of them, the one out of the other; and man- we ourselves—were just the descendants of monkeys! What could be expected for such a book, if not all but a universal rush to buy? Mr. Murray printed no fewer than 1250 copies of it, not one of which was left in his shop the very first day, and he made haste to throw off 3000 copies more!

I do not

And how did the public find the book? suppose that any one will pretend that it is read now; and I do not suppose that any one will pretend that it

was read through then-unless by those, the few friends of science and the author, whom, in both respects, of course, it immediately and specially concerned. How could the public that bought the book, constituted as only a public can be (i.e. something after the pattern of the nine hundred guests that are nowadays invited to a marriage !)—how could such a public be expected to read the book? What sort of book is it? It ought to be very interesting—what more interesting than anecdotes and stories of Alligators, and Ants, and Apes, Asses and Arab Horses, Bees and Bats, and Birds, and Bears, and Whales what more interesting, in fact, than just Geology and Zoology on the whole ? But is it interesting? Well, his son tells us, "His (Darwin's) style has been much praised: it is, above all things, direct and clear; and I do not think it will readily occur to any one to contradict as much. The book is plainly written; it is as plain as the plainstones beneath your feet-but how are they then" your poor feet"? I know one man at least who has read a good number of books, of all kinds, too, some of them not absolutely easy either-and he somehow has always felt the book and feared the book as so much lead. But that may be prejudice! What of the experts, the express personal friends who put the trumpets to their mouths? Much evidence may exist in this regard,-we, for our part, have only what the Life and Letters may show; and there we see a correspondence only on one side. We find few letters in the three volumes that are from the other side. Even the one or two letters to which we can refer consist, as acknowledgments on the part of the nearest personal friends, only for the most part of the usual congratulatory laudation.

Sir Charles Lyell having, as he says, just finished the volume, praises it much. He finds, however," the con

densation immense, too great perhaps for the uninitiated; and he suggests that, when a new edition is called for, an actual case be inserted here and there "to relieve the vast number of abstract propositions." Hooker has “not yet attempted to read" the book, but "on the strength of two or three plunges," declares it "glorious." Nor after actual (so far) reading does he speak otherwise; but then also we have such expressions as these: "I have not yet got half through the book, not from want of will, but of time for it is the very hardest book to read, to full profits, that I ever tried-it is so cram-full of matter and reasoning the three volumes, unprefaced by this, would have choked any naturalist of the nineteenth century, and certainly have softened my brain in the operation of assimilating their contents. It is extremely clear as far as I have gone, but very hard to fully appreciate." Charles Kingsley has to say, "I fear I cannot read your book just now as I ought: all I have seen of it awes me; both with the heap of facts and the prestige of your name." "Poor dear Hooker is tired to death of my book," says Mr. Darwin himself (ii. 301); nor does his own experience on re-reading it seem to have been different. Once he declares, "it is tough reading, and I wish it were done;" while on another occasion he moans out, "it is intolerably dull" (iii. 31 and 65). He even cries (ii. 311), "No doubt the public has been shamefully imposed on! for they bought the book thinking that it would be nice easy reading."

I think any one who impartially considers these quotations will without hesitation admit that I have rather extenuated than exaggerated the sort of heaviness with which the book meets-at least some readers. How very different is the Journal!

"There are," says Schelling (WW. x. 100), "certain moral and other qualities, which a man has, only when

he has them not, or, as is well said, so far as he does not anziehen them, put them on. For example, grace is at all possible only in the non-knowledge of itself; whereas any one who knows his grace, who puts it on, has already lost it. It is the same with unconsciousnessUnbefangenheit. What is unbefangen is that which never at any time knows itself: directly it becomes conscious of itself, it is already befangen.”

I fancy this perfectly well puts the comparative case of the two works. The Origin, as a Befangenes, contrasts with the Journal as an Unbefangenes. The one is as straitened, and stiff, and intentional, as the other is facile, free, and spontaneous. The one is all consciousness and thought; the other is thought, but it is without consciousness. The one is nothing but preparation; the other is only growth.

In short, the one
And the reason is,

is artifice, while the other is nature. that the one is compilation, while the other is a record of life.

Now that is the pity of it! The success of the book depended on the belief of the public that it was the product of work at first hand, and not of compilation at second-work at first hand and of the greatest naturalist in existence. Mr. Darwin (ii. 281) says himself to Mr. Huxley: "I have picked up most by reading really numberless special treatises and all agricultural and horticultural journals; but it is a work of long years. The difficulty is to know what to trust." That really is the difficulty; and Mr. Darwin has reason in italicising it. A compilation is always a dressing of facts for a purpose; and such a state of the case is simply glaring in every turn of the Origin. Had it been but as true as the Journal is! Mr. Huxley himself tells us how it is with compilation in general and Mr. Darwin's compilation in particular. He is quoted (i. 347) to say—