“A Criticism on Darwin.”

Abstract

I WRITE to protest against what appears to be a growing habit on the part of certain publishing firms of advertising their books in a most misleading manner, viz., by selecting any phrase from a notice of the book which may serve to indicate that the writer's opinion on the work as a whole is favourable, whereas, if quoted with its immediate context, the passage would prove the precise opposite. For example, I see in NATURE and elsewhere an advertisement of Mr. David Syme's book “On the Modification of Organisms; a Criticism of Darwin” (Simp. kin, Marshall, and Co.), in which I am quoted as having called the writer “a shrewd critic.” Standing by itself these words imply that I have somewhere recommended the work as well worthy of perusal. The fact of the matter, however, is, that the words occur in a foot-note which I added to the proof of my recently published book on “Darwin and After Darwin,” for the expressed purpose “of showing the extraordinary confusion of mind which still prevails on the part of Darwin's critics, even with reference to the very fundamental parts of his theory.” Else. where in the same foot-note I refer to the writer's “almost ludicrous misunderstandings”; and conclude by saying that he “shows himself a shrewd critic in some other parts of his essay, where he is not engaged especially on the theory of natural selection.” I may now add that the only parts of his essay to which these advertised words apply ate those where he treats of the deleterious effects of in-breeding.