Nothing else in Darwin's work, he assured me, was novel, and
yet it was the one thing which subsequent research had rendered more and
more doubtful. Darwin (he said) said nothing new that was also true.
At this point I was moved to contradict the old gentleman, and to say
that one unquestioned contribution to science of Darwin, as novel as it
was secure, was his patient discovery of the work of earthworms, and of
its vast effect. The old gentleman was willing to admit that I was
right, but he said he was only speaking of Darwin in connection with
transformism and the whimsical way in which his private name (and his
errors) had become identified with evolution in general.
I asked him, since he had such a knowledge of men from observation, why
this was so.
"It seems at first sight," he said, "as ridiculous as though we should
associate the theory of light with the name of Newton, who inclined to
the exploded corpuscular hypothesis, or the general conception of
orbital motion in the universe to the great Bacon, who, in point of
fact, rudely repudiated the Copernican theory in particular."
"Did he, indeed?" said I, interested.
"I believe so," said the old gentleman; "at any rate you were asking me
why Darwin, with his single contribution to the theory of transformism,
and that a doubtful one--or, to be accurate, an exploded one--should be
associated in the popular mind with the invention of so ancient a theory
as that of evolution.
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