THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' l8$ 



only a very little way.* On the other hand, Lyell, up to 

 that time a pillar of the anti-transmutationists (who regarded 

 him, ever afterwards, as Pallas Athene may have looked 

 at Dian, after the Endymion affair), declared himself a 

 Darwinian, though not without putting in a serious caveat. 

 Nevertheless, he was a tower of strength, and his courageous 

 stand for truth as against consistency, did him infinite 

 .honour. As evolutionists, sans p/wase, I do not call to mind 

 among the biologists more than Asa Gray, who fought the 

 battle splendidly in the United States ; Hooker, who was no 

 less vigorous here ; the present Sir John Lubbock and my- 

 self. Wallace was far away in the Malay Archipelago ; but, 

 apart from his direct share in the promulgation of the 

 theory of natural selection, no enumeration of the influences 

 at work, at the time I am speaking of, would be com- 

 plete without the mention of his powerful essay ' On the 

 Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species,' 

 which was published in 1855. On reading it afresh, I have 

 been astonished to recollect how small was the impression 

 it made. 



In France, the influence of Elie de Beaumont and of Flourens, 

 the former of whom is said to have " damned himself to 

 everlasting fame " by inventing the nickname of " la science 

 moussante " for Evolutionism,! to say nothing of the ill-will 

 of other powerful members of the Institut, produced for a 



* "I see no serious objections to tions." ' Sur l'Origine de l'Espece. 



the formation of varieties by natural Par Charles Darwin.' 'Archives des 



.selection in the existing world, and Sc. de la Bibliotheque Universelle 



that, so far as earlier epochs are con- de Geneve,' pp. 242, 243, Mars i860, 



cerned, this law may be assumed f One is reminded of the effect 



to explain the origin of closely allied of another small academic epigram, 



species, supposing for this purpose a The so-called vertebral theory of 



very long period of time. the skull is said to have been nipped 



" With regard to simple varieties in the bud in France by the whisper 



and closely allied species, I believe of an academician to his neighbour, 



that Mr. Darwin's theory may that, in that case, one's head was a 



explain many things, and throw a "vertebre pensante" 

 great light upon numerous ques- 



