POSTSCRIPT.
My best thanks are due to Mr. Gladstone for his courteous
withdrawal of one of the statements to which I have thought it
needful to take exception. The familiarity with controversy, to
which Mr. Gladstone alludes, will have accustomed him to the
misadventures which arise when, as sometimes will happen in the
heat of fence, the buttons come off the foils. I trust that any
scratch which he may have received will heal as quickly as my
own flesh wounds have done.
A contribution to the last number of this Review (
The
Nineteenth Century) of a different order would be left
unnoticed, were it not that my silence would convert me into an
accessory to misrepresentations of a very grave character.
However, I shall restrict myself to the barest possible
statement of facts, leaving my readers to draw their
own conclusions.
In an article entitled "A Great Lesson," published in this
Review for September, 1887:
(1) The Duke of Argyll says the "overthrow of Darwin's
speculations" (p. 301) concerning the origin of coral reefs,
which he fancied had taken place, had been received by men of
science "with a grudging silence as far as public discussion is
concerned" (p. 301).
The truth is that, as every one acquainted with the literature
of the subject was well aware, the views supposed to have
effected this overthrow had been fully and publicly discussed by
Dana in the United States; by Geikie, Green, and Prestwich in
this country; by Lapparent in France; and by Credner in Germany.
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