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'EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW.'

I beg leave to lay before you the following facts:—

On February 22nd, 1879, my book 'Evolution Old and New' was announced. It was published May 3rd, 1879. It contained a comparison of the theory of evolution as propounded by Dr. Erasmus Darwin with that of his grandson, Mr. Charles Darwin, the preference being decidedly given to the earlier writer. It also contained other matter which I could not omit, but which I am afraid may have given some offence to Mr. Darwin and his friends.

In November, 1879, Mr. Charles Darwin's 'Life of Erasmus Darwin' appeared. It is to the line which Mr. Darwin has taken in connexion with this volume that I wish to call attention.

Mr. Darwin states in his preface that he is giving to the public a translation of an article by Dr. Krause, which appeared "in the February number of a well-known German scientific journal, Kosmos," then just entered on its second year. He adds in a note that the translator's "scientific reputation, together with his knowledge of German, is a guarantee for its accuracy." This is equivalent, I imagine, to guaranteeing the accuracy himself.

In a second note, upon the following page, he says that my work 'Evolution Old and New' "has appeared since the publication of Dr. Krause's article." He thus distinctly precludes his readers from supposing that any passage they may meet with could have been written by the light of, or with reference to, my book.

On reading the English translation I found in it one point which appeared to have been taken from Evolution old and New, and another which clearly and indisputably was so; I also found more than one paragraph, but especially the last—and perhaps most prominent in the book, as making the impression it was most desired the reader should carry away with him—which it was hard to believe was not written at myself; but I found no acknowledgment of what seemed taken from 'Evolution Old and New,' nor any express reference to it.

In the face of the English translation itself, it was incredible that the writer had written without my work before him; in the face of the preface it was no less incredible that Mr. Darwin should have distinctly told his readers that he was giving them one article, when he must have perfectly well known that he was giving them another and very different one.

I therefore sent for the February number of Kosmos and compared the original with what purported to be the translation. I found many passages of the German omitted, and many in the English article were wholly wanting in the German. Among these latter were the passages I had conceived to be taken from me and the ones which were most adverse to me.

Dr. Krause's article begins on p. 131 of Mr. Darwin's book. There is new matter on pp. 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, while almost the whole of pp. 147-152 inclusive, and all the last six pages are not to be found in the supposed original.

I then wrote to Mr. Darwin, putting the facts before him as they appeared to myself, and asking for an explanation; I received answer that Dr. Krause's article had been altered since publication, and that the altered MS. had been sent for translation. "This is so common a practice," writes Mr. Darwin, with that "happy simplicity" of which the Pall Mall Gazette (December 12th, 1879) declares him "to be a master," "that it never occurred to me to state that the article had been modified; but now I much regret that I did not do so." Mr. Darwin further says that, should there be a reprint of the English life of Dr. Darwin, he will state that the original as it appeared in Kosmos was modified by Dr. Krause. He does not, however, either deny or admit that the modification of the article was made by the light of, and with a view to, my book.

It is doubtless a common practice for writers to take an opportunity of revising their works, but it is not common when a covert condemnation of an opponent has been interpolated into a revised edition, the revision of which has been concealed, to declare with every circumstance of distinctness that the condemnation was written prior to the book which might appear to have called it forth, and thus lead readers to suppose that it must be an unbiassed opinion.

S. BUTLER.

P.S.— A reviewer in the Pall Mall Gazette (Dec. 12th, 1879) quotes the last sentence of the spurious matter, apparently believing it to be genuine. He writes:—"Altogether the facts established by Dr. Krause's essay thoroughly justify its concluding words:— 'Erasmus Darwin's system was in itself a most significant first step in the path of knowledge which his grandson has opened up for us, but the wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no one can envy'." On this (which has no place in the original article, and is clearly an interpolation aimed covertly at myself) the reviewer muses forth a general gnome that "the confidence of writers who deal in semi-scientific paradoxes is commonly in inverse proportion to their grasp of the subject." When sentences have been misdated, the less they contain about anachronisms the better, and reviewers who do not carefully verify Mr. Darwin's statements should not be too confident that they have grasped their subject.

I have seen also a review of Mr. Darwin's book in the Popular Science Review for this current month, and observe that it does "occur to" the writer to state (p. 69), in flat contradiction to the assertions made in the preface of the book he is reviewing, that only part of Dr. Krause's original essay is being given by Mr. Darwin. It is plain that this reviewer had seen both Kosmos and Mr. Darwin's book.

The writer of the review of 'Evolution Old and New'—which immediately follows the one referred to in the preceeding paragraph—quotes the passsage above given as quoted in the Pall Mall Gazette. I see it does "occur to" him, too—again in flat contradiction to Mr. Darwin's preface—to add that "this anachronism has been committed by Mr. Samuel Butler, in a … little volume now before us, and it is doubtless to this, which appeared while his own work was in progress (italics mine), that Dr. Krause alludes in the above passage."

Considering that the editor of the Popular Science Review and the translator of Dr. Krause'sarticle for Mr. Darwin are one and the same person, it is likely that the Popular Science Review has surmised correctly that Dr. Krause was writing at 'Evolution Old and New': yet he seems to have found it very sufficiently useful to him.