Quote
What Darwin did was to make it current intellectual coin. He gave it a form that commended itself to the scientific and public intelligence of the day, and he won wide-spread conviction by showing with consummate skill that it was an effective formula to work with, a key which no lock refused. In a scholarly, critical, and pre-eminently fair-minded way, admitting difficulties and removing them, foreseeing objections and forestalling them, he showed that the doctrine of descent supplied a modal interpretation of how our present-day fauna and flora have come to be.
(I supplied the bold)

J. ARTHUR THOMSON doesn't attribute Darwin's habit to "literary style" either.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/modern-science/chapter02.html

I don't think that argument is very persuasive, all things considered. We see that the promoters of evolutionism played on this aspect of his writing in promoting of Darwinism, in fact. What? Is it a one-way street? Were they liars? (Okay, that last one's too easy.)

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/seward_modern-science.html
is the index to the 100 year old ESSAYS IN COMMEMORATION OF THE CENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF CHARLES DARWIN AND OF THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PUBLICATION OF "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES" I think there's potential to discover quite a bit about the history & context of evolutionism's progress there.

Editing to add:
I'm disappointed in the contents. Surely they could've found better writers. A good deal does not make sense, and that which does is usually pretty disgusting. Imagine talkdeceptions 1909, with a bigger vocabulary.

Last edited by CTD; 04/05/09 12:02 AM.
Dark Matter + Dark Energy = Dark Truth

"We find that such evidence demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution." - Judge Jones Kitzmiller case
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Falsify.cfm

"To Compel A Man To Furnish Funds For The Propagation Of Ideas He Disbelieves And Abhors Is Sinful And Tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" - Thomas Jefferson