1880.] on ' Tlie OrUjin of Species: 363 



itself. In both these respects tho history of biological science 

 during tho last twenty years appears to me to afford an ample 

 explanation of tho change which has taken place ; and a brief 

 consideration of the salient events of that history will enable us to 

 understand why, if tlic ' Origin of Species ' appeared now, it would 

 meet with a very difterent reception from that which greeted it in 

 1859. 



One-and-twenty years ago, in spite of the work commenced by 

 Hutton and continued with rare skill and patience by Lyell, the 

 dominant view of the past history of the earth was catastrophic. 

 Great and sudden physical revolutions, wholesale creations and 

 extinctions of living beings, were the ordinary machinery of the 

 geological epic brought into fashion by the misapplied genius of 

 Cuvier. It was gravely maintained and taught that the end of 

 every geological epoch was signalized by a cataclysm, by which 

 every living being on the globe was swept away, to be replaced by 

 a brand-new creation when the world returned to quiescence. A 

 scheme of nature which appeared to be modelled on the likeness 

 of a succession of rubbers of whist, at the end of each of which the 

 players upset the table and called for a new pack, did not seem to 

 shock anybody. 



I may be wrong, but I doubt if at the present time there is a 

 single responsible representative of these opinions left. The pro- 

 gress of scientific geology has elevated the fundamental principle 

 of uniformitarianism, that the explanation of the past is to be sought 

 in the study of the present, into the position of an axiom ; and the 

 wild speculations of the catastrophists, to which we all listened with 

 respect a quarter of a century ago, would hardly find a single patient 

 hearer at the present day. No physical geologist now dreams of 

 seeking outside the range of known natural causes for the explana- 

 tion of anything that happened millions of years ago, any more 

 than he would be guilty of the like absurdity in regard to current 

 events. 



The effect of this change of opinion upon biological speculation 

 is obvious. For, if there have been no periodical general physical 

 catastrophes, what brought about the assumed general extinctions and 

 re-creations of life which are the corresponding biological catas- 

 trophes ? And if no such interruptions of the ordinary course of 

 nature have taken place in the organic, any more than in the 

 inorganic, world, what alternative is there to the admission of 

 evolution ? 



The doctrine of evolution in biology is the necessary result of the 

 logical application of the principles of uniformitarianism to the 

 phenomena of life. Darwin is the natural successor of Hutton and 

 Lyell, and the ' Origin of Species ' the logical sequence of the 

 ' Princij)les of Geology.' 



The fundamental doctrine of the ' Origin of Species,' as of all 

 forms of the theory of evolution ajiplied to biology, is " that the 



