Chapter 11

"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.' In my later visits to Down in 1876 and 1879 I had the pleasure of being able to relate to Darwin the mighty progress which in the past intervals his doctrines had made in Germany. Their decisive outburst happened more rapidly and more completely here with us than in England, for the reason chiefly that the power of social and religious prejudice is not nearly so strong here as among our cousins across the Channel, who are better placed than ourselves. Darwin was perfectly well aware of all this; though his knowledge of our language and literature was defective, as he often complained, yet he had the highest appreciation of our intellectual treasures."

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