7 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But Mr. Wallace needs no compliments from me, and it is not 

 for the purpose of paying them that I have taken pen in hand. 

 My purpose is rather to commit to paper certain thoughts which 

 have occurred to me during the reading of his most interesting 

 volume, and which it may perhaps be worth while to record. It 

 seems to me that the publication of Mr. Wallace's work affords 

 an occasion for taking stock, as it were, of that which the author 

 describes as "Darwinism." It is needless to say that in the 

 author's use of the word there is nothing vague, much less dis- 

 paraging, in this term. The term is used in a certain definite 

 sense, and is intended to express, not evolution in general, but 

 evolution by those special processes to which Mr. Darwin believed 

 evolution to be due. It is, I think, manifest that much advantage 

 may accrue even from a declaration at the hands of such an 

 authority as Mr. Wallace of what " Darwinism " is ; but, besides 

 this, it is specially advantageous, now that a quarter of a century 

 has passed since the great revolution in thought on this class of 

 subjects commenced, that we should know what is the real position 

 of the controversy ; there has been sufficient time for the smoke 

 and din of the battle to pass away, and we can now form a better 

 estimate than was possible in earlier days of the actual result of 

 the engagement. I propose, therefore, to offer some remarks upon 

 Mr. Wallace's volume, chiefly from the point of view just indi- 

 cated; observing in general that the conclusion which seems to 

 me to be of chief importance is this — that while Mr. Wallace 

 holds to Darwin's views in the most important particulars, he 

 does not regard " Darwinism " as any explanation of some of the 

 most important phenomena which the living world presents. 



This observation, however, must stand on one side for the 

 present. The point which must occupy us just now is the actual 

 meaning of '"' Darwinism," upon which possibly not a few persons 

 have somewhat hazy notions. Let me quote Mr. Wallace : * 



In order to show the view Darwin took of his own work, and what it was that 

 he alone claimed to have done, the concluding passage of the introduction to the 

 Origin of Species should he carefully considered. It is as follows: "Although 

 much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, 

 after the most deliberate and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that 

 the view which most naturalists until recently entertained, and which I formerly 

 entertained — namely, that each species has been independently created — is erro- 

 neous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable ; but that those 

 belonging to what are called the same genera are the lineal descendants of some 

 other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged 

 varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I 

 am convinced that natural selection has been the most important, but not the 

 exclusive, means of modification." It should be especially noted, adds Mr. Wal- 



* Page 9. 



