JA's doubts puzzle me. As a scientist VN was observing and experimenting, like his fellow scientists and he did recognize that, like them, he had no final word about his scientific conclusions ("another fellow will show how wrong I was in this or that. Herein lies the difference between science and art."). As an artist he could risk and rely on intuition to voice his indignation against the fact that, like any other commoner, his physical self would become dust among dust.
J.A.: Jansy, you are probably right to be puzzled by my doubt. But the truth is, I was really surprised by his admitting any admiration for Darwin at
all. His books are so suffused with consistently held qualms about notions of "the struggle for survival" I never quite thought somehow that he might have seperated that from the process of evolution. And to be honest I'm still kind of puzzled as to why he should do so.
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