When
biologists show pique at all they generally show a good deal of
pique, but pique or no pique, they shunned Mr. Spencer's objection
above referred to with a persistency more unanimous and obstinate
than I ever remember to have seen displayed even by professional
truth-seekers. I find no rejoinder to it from Mr. Darwin himself,
between 1865 when it was first put forward, and 1882 when Mr. Darwin
died. It has been similarly "ostrichised" by all the leading
apologists of Darwinism, so far at least as I have been able to
observe, and I have followed the matter closely for many years. Mr.
Spencer has repeated and amplified it in his recent work, "The
Factors of Organic Evolution," but it still remains without so much
as an attempt at serious answer, for the perfunctory and illusory
remarks of Mr. Wallace at the end of his "Darwinism" cannot be
counted as such. The best proof of its irresistible weight is that
Mr. Darwin, though maintaining silence in respect to it, retreated
from his original position in the direction that would most obviate
Mr. Spencer's objection.
Yet this objection has been repeatedly urged by the more prominent
anti-Charles-Darwinian authorities, and there is no sign that the
British public is becoming less rigorous in requiring people either
to reply to objections repeatedly urged by men of even moderate
weight, or to let judgment go by default.
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