Such, at all events, appears to me the obvious interpretation of his writings when these are carefully read with a view to ascertaining his ideas upon "Utilitarian doctrine: how far true." And I make these remarks because it has been laid to my charge, that in quoting such passages as the above I have been putting "a strained interpretation" upon Darwin's utterances: "such admissions," it is said, "Mr. Romanes appears to me to treat as if wrung from a hostile witness[167]." But, from what has gone before, it ought to be apparent that I take precisely the opposite view to that here imputed. Far from deeming these and similar passages as "admissions wrung from a hostile witness," and far from seeking to put any "strained interpretation" upon them, I believe that they are but the plain and unequivocal expressions of an opinion which I have always understood that Darwin held. And if any one has been led to think otherwise, I throw back this charge of "strained interpretation," by challenging such a person to adduce a single quotation from any part of Darwin's works, which can possibly be held to indicate that he regarded passages like those above quoted as in any way out of conformity with his theory of natural selection--or as put forward merely to "admit the possibility of explanations, to which really, however, he did not attach much importance." To the best of my judgement it is only some bias in favour of Mr. Wallace's views that can lead a naturalist to view in this way the clear and consistent expression of Darwin's. [167] Mr. Thiselton Dyer in _Nature_, _loc. cit._