PREFACE. Nor finding the "well-known German scientific journal Kosmos"1 entered in the British Museum Catalogue, I have presented the Museum with a copy of the number for February 1879, which contains the article by Dr. Krause of which Mr. Charles Darwin has given a translation, the accuracy of which is guaranteed-so he informs us-by the translator's "scientific reputation together with his knowledge of German." " I have marked the copy, so that the reader can see at a glance what passages have been suppressed and where matter has been interpolated. I have also presented a copy of "Erasmus Darwin." I have marked this too, so that the 1 Preface by Mr. Charles Darwin to "Erasmus Darwin." The Museum has copies of a Kosmos that was published 1857-60 and then discontinued; but this is clearly not the Kosmos referred to by Mr. Darwin, which began to appear in 1878. 2 Preface to "Erasmus Darwin." genuine and spurious passages can be easily distinguished. I understand that both the "Erasmus Darwin" and the number of Kosmos have been sent to the Keeper of Printed Books, with instructions that they shall be at once catalogued and made accessible to readers, and do not doubt that this will have been done before the present volume is published. The reader, therefore, who may be sufficiently interested in the matter to care to see exactly what has been done will now have an opportunity of doing so. October 25, 1880. UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY. ERRATA. Page 53, line 11, for greatest of living men read "greatest of perception read perfection. 183, last line, dele inverted commas. 287, last line but three, dele comma between Erasmus and Darwin. to the apparently sudden overthrow of a belief which had seemed hitherto to be deeply rooted in the minds of almost all men. As a parallel to this, though in respect of the rapid spread of an opinion, and not its decadence, it is probable A |