AN EARLY AMERICAN EVOLUTIONIST. 227 



doubt, if any had existed, as to the identity of the wild and domesti- 

 cated stocks in Europe, and we may safely proceed to compare the 

 physical characters of these races as varieties which have arisen in 

 one species." (Unity, etc., pages 32, 33.) 



As will be remembered, the leading instance of reversion cited 

 in the Origin of Species is the tendency of fancy breeds of pigeons 

 to return to the " blue rock," from which fact Mr. Darwin concludes 

 that to be the original stock. As the hog is a more highly organized 

 animal than the pigeon, this flexibility of species in it is more striking 

 than in the oviparous pigeon. 



As suggested above, it is probable that much of the interest ex- 

 cited by the Origin of Species was due to the brilliant exposition 

 of Mr. Huxley; but, aside from that, unquestionably the chief rea- 

 son that so many without the ranks of professional biologists dis- 

 cussed its reasoning so eagerly and earnestly was the bearing it had 

 on the genesis of man. Mr. Huxley's lectures touched almost every 

 branch of modern science — zoology, bacteriology, geology, sociol- 

 ogy — all were equally familiar to this, perhaps the greatest public 

 lecturer of our race, but to none of them did the laity give the rapt 

 attention that was and still is given to evolution. The bearing of 

 spontaneous variation among the lower orders of living organisms 

 on the human race was clearly seen by Dr. Cabell, and the object 

 of his work was to offset the arguments of those who claimed a plu- 

 rality of genera among men by showing that lower organisms develop 

 varieties without the intervention of any supernatural creative 

 power. As a necessary inference from this, and, indeed, that it 

 should have any bearing at all on the problem of humanity, he must 

 have held that there was no radical difference between man and 

 other animals. 



The similarity between the arguments used by Cabell and those 

 to be used a few months later by Darwin is striking, and equally 

 remarkable is it that both should have foreseen objections to the 

 theory, and that these objections are essentially identical. The 

 difficulty of defining species as distinct from variety impressed them 

 both; the alleged sterility of hybrids, an objection answered by both 

 by showing it not to be invariable; the lack of intermediate forms, 

 attributed by Darwin to the imperfection of the geological record 

 and by Cabell to imperfect geographical knowledge, and several 

 similar instances, can not fail to impress an attentive reader. 



This neglected volume is a wonderful monument of painstaking 

 labor and erudition, and although overshadowed by the more exten- 

 sive works that appeared a few months later from the great English 

 writers, it is one in which American biologists may take pride. 

 Most remarkable, however, is the fact that it was greeted with de- 



