It would not be easy to beat this. Mr. Darwin’s worst enemy could wish him no more damaging eulogist.
Of the “Vestiges” Mr. Allen says that Mr. Darwin “felt sadly” the inaccuracy and want of profound technical knowledge everywhere displayed by the anonymous author. Nevertheless, long after, in the “Origin of Species,” the great naturalist wrote with generous appreciation of the “Vestiges of Creation”—“In my opinion it has done excellent service in this country in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views.”
I have already referred to the way in which Mr. Darwin treated the author of the “Vestiges,” and have stated the facts at greater length in “Evolution Old and New,” but it may be as well to give Mr. Darwin’s words in full; he wrote as follows on the third page of the original edition of the “Origin of Species”:—
“The author of the ‘Vestiges of Creation’ would, I presume, say that, after a certain unknown number of generations, some bird had given birth to a woodpecker, and some plant to the mistletoe, and that these had been produced perfect as we now see them; but this assumption seems to me to be no explanation, for it leaves the case of the coadaptation of organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life untouched and unexplained.”
The author of the “Vestiges” did, doubtless, suppose that “_some_ bird” had given birth to a woodpecker, or more strictly, that a couple of birds had done so—and this is all that Mr. Darwin has committed himself to—but no one better knew that these two birds would, according to the author of the “Vestiges,” be just as much woodpeckers, and just as little woodpeckers, as they would be with Mr. Darwin himself. Mr. Chambers did not suppose that a woodpecker became a woodpecker _per saltum_ though born of some widely different bird, but Mr. Darwin’s words have no application unless they convey this impression. The reader will note that though the impression is conveyed, Mr. Darwin avoids conveying it categorically. I suppose this is what Mr. Allen means by saying that he “made all things sure behind him.” Mr. Chambers did indeed believe in occasional sports; so did Mr. Darwin, and we have seen that in the later editions of the “Origin of Species” he found himself constrained to lay greater stress on these than he had originally done. Substantially, Mr. Chambers held much the same opinion as to the suddenness or slowness of modification as Mr. Darwin did, nor can it be doubted that Mr. Darwin knew this perfectly well.