Xvi PEOCEEDINGS Oi" THE 



one can foresee," and that it is " a wonderful feat of scientific know- 

 ledge and ingenuity to have rendered so bold a suggestion, which the 

 first impulse of every one was to reject at once, admissible and dis- 

 cussible even as a conjecture " (Mill's Logic, 5th ed. vol. ii. p. 18)*. 



Into the discussion itself of the points in which I should be dis- 

 posed to agree or disagree with Mr. Darwin's conclusions it is not 

 my intention, nor scarcely within the legitimate scope of our Society, 

 to enter ; but, as it is our special province to collect facts bearing 

 upon that or any other biological hypothesis, it has been my wish to 

 ascertain how far the discussion and verification of his views have 

 proceeded since the publication of his work. 



The reviews, analyses, and criticisms which have appeared have 

 been numberless. The subject has been taken up in almost every 

 periodical professing to treat occasionally or specially of scientific 

 questions ; it has been handled by most of the eminent naturahsts of 

 the day, at home and abroad, and I certainly can have no pretension 

 to have read anything like the whole of these productions. I have, 

 however, looked through all that have come in my way, and care- 

 fully studied those to which more weight was attached from the 

 names of their authors, avowed or presumed, including several which 

 Mr. Darwin kindly indicated to me as containing the best arguments 

 opposed to his views, out of a collection of about ninety he had before 

 him. 



The majority of the reviews pubKshed on the fix-st appearance of 

 his work, intended mostly for the general reader, and more or less 

 hostile to Mr. Dai-win's views, dwelt more on the ultimate results 

 he hinted at as derivable from his hypothesis, than on the observa- 

 tions and arguments on which he founded it. This enlisting of 

 popular or religious feeHng in the subject, successful as it had been 

 in the case of the crude speculations of Lamarck or of the ' Vestiges 

 of Creation,' so little supported by observation of facts, has been 

 of little avail when opposed to the lucid juxtaposition and calm 

 consideration of carefully observed phenomena, even though in 

 several cases an unworthy attempt was made to depreciate the num- 

 ber and accuracy of these observations and to cast a general slur 

 upon the line of argument adopted. Such criticisms are now, how- 

 ever, forgotten, and it is therefore useless to specialize them. Many 



* Although I follow others in putting forward Mr. Darwin alone as the ori- 

 ginator of this hypothesis, I am perfectly aware of the claims of Mr. A. R. Wallace 

 to having independently, and at the same time, suggested the main ideas on whicli 

 it rests (see Jom-n. Linn. Soc, Zoology, iii. p. 45) ; but it is Mr. Darwin alone 

 who has methodiz;ed the subject «« all its bearings into a tangible hypothesis. 



