“The Conspiracy of Silence”

Abstract

“DARWIN'S LIFE AND LETTERS” are now public property, and as reference to vol. iii. p. 242, shows—what nearly every scientific man knew—that the late Sir Wyville Thomson was distinctly anti-Darwinian in his views, it follows that the Duke of Argyll's inferences as to his reasons for urging Mr. Murray's withdrawal of the “new coral-reef theory” paper from the Royal Society of Edinburgh is illogical, not to say absurd. In justice to Sir Wyville's memory and in support of Mr. Bonney's surmise (NATURE, November 24, p. 77) I wish to state that, talking with Sir Wyville about “Murray's new theory,” I asked what objection he had to its being brought before the public? The answer simply was: he considered that the grounds of the theory had not as yet been sufficiently investigated or sufficiently corroborated, and that therefore any immature, dogmatic publication of it would do less than little service either to science or to the author of the paper.