Those prospects at that time--16 years ago--were bad
enough, for the highest authorities had for the most part set themselves
against the new doctrines. With touching modesty, Darwin said that his
whole work was but a weak attempt to explain in a natural way the origin
of animal and vegetable species, and that he should not live to see any
noteworthy success following the experiment, the mountain of opposing
prejudice being so high. He thought I had greatly overestimated his
small merit, and that the high praise I had bestowed on it in my
'General Morphology' was far too exaggerated.
"We next came to speak of the numerous and violent attacks on his work,
which were then in the ascendant. In the case of many of those pitiful
botches one was, in fact, quite at a loss whether more to lament the
want of understanding and judgment they showed or to give the greater
vent to the indignation one could not but feel at the arrogance and
presumption of those miserable scribblers who pooh-poohed Darwin's
ideas and bespattered his character. I had then, as on later occasions,
repeatedly expressed my just scorn of the contemptible clan. Darwin
smiled at this, and endeavored to calm me with the words, 'My dear young
friend, believe me one must have compassion and forbearance with such
poor creatures; the stream of truth they can only hold back for a
passing instant, but never permanently stem.
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