178 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



siinother it with ridicule or to crush it by vehemence of denunciation. 

 ■^The struggle for existence/ and 'Natural selection/ have become house- 

 hold words and every-day conceptions. The reality and the importance 

 of the natural processes on which Darwin founds his deductions are no 

 more doubted than those of growth and multiplication; and, whether 

 the full potency attributed to them is admitted or not, no one doubts 

 their vast and far-reaching significance. Wherever the biological 

 sciences are studied, the 'Origin of Species' lights the paths of the inves- 

 tigator; wherever they are taught it permeates the course of instruction. 

 iSTor has the influence of Darwinian ideas been less profound, beyond 

 the realms of Biology. The oldest of all philosophies, that of Evolu- 

 tion, was bound hand and foot and cast into utter darkness during the 

 millennium of theological scholasticism. But Darwin poured new life- 

 blood into the ancient frame; the bonds burst, and the revivified 

 thought of ancient Greece has proved itself to be a more adequate ex- 

 pression of the universal order of things than any of the schemes which 

 have been accepted by the credulity and welcomed by the superstition of 

 seventy later generations of men. 



To any one who studies the signs of the times, the emergence of the 

 philosophy of Evolution, in the attitude of claimant to the throne of 

 the world of thought, from the limbo of hated and, as many hoped, 

 forgotten things, is the most portentous event of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. But the most effective weapons of the modern champions of Evo- 

 lution were fabricated by Darwin; and the 'Origin of Species' has en- 

 listed a formidable body of combatants, trained in the severe school of 

 Physical Science, whose ears might have long remained deaf to the 

 speculations of d priori philosophers. * * * 



If I confine my retrospect of the reception of the 'Origin of Species' 

 to a twelvemonth, or thereabouts, from the time of its publication, I do 

 not recollect anything quite so foolish and unmannerly as the 'Quarterly 

 Review* article, unless, perhaps, the address of a Eeverend Professor to 

 the Dublin Geological Society might enter into competition with it. But 

 a large proportion of Mr. Darwin's critics had a lamentable resemblance 

 to the 'Quarterly' reviewer, in so far as they lacked either the will, or 

 the wit, to make themselves masters of his doctrine; hardly any pos- 

 sessed the knowledge required to follow him through the immense range 

 of biological and geological science which the 'Origin' covered; while, 

 too commonly, they had prejudiced the case on theological grounds, and, 

 as seems to be inevitable when this happens, eked out lack of reason by 

 superfluity of railing. 



But it will be more pleasant and more profitable to consider those 

 criticisms, which were acknowledged by writers of scientific authority, 

 or which bore internal evidence of the greater or less competency and, 

 often, of the good faith, of their authors. Restricting my survey to a 



