EVOLUTION 113 



I was somewhat disappointed to find that they did not 

 so readily as I had hoped approve of the new theory. 

 In some quarters I failed to attract notice ; in others my 

 efforts received only a qualified approval. But I am 

 sure I was not discouraged in consequence ; and I never 

 doubted for one moment, then nor since, that we had 

 one of the grandest discoveries of the age — a discovery 

 all the more grand because it was so simple.* 



At once a hundred difficulties were swept away : 

 there seemed to be a plausible answer to the question, 

 " Wliat is a Species ? " The new theory might even 

 explain how one variety or race might pass into another, 

 but the doubt arose whether the process of invisible 

 steps could do more than that and produce the stupen- 

 dous effects, which are now expressed by the word 

 Evolution. 



That the doubt thus impHed was occasionally stagger- 

 ing I do not deny ; but I always found that, even if for 

 a time I reeled under it, I could by further reflection 

 recover my balance and resume my position. The 

 consideration which thus enabled me to keep, on the 

 whole, a steady attitude, was one furnished by a very 

 small amount of mathematics acquired in earlier days 

 and fortunately yet borne in mind. One has not to go 

 far in the study of algebra before one meets with a 

 theorem in which one finds that certain properties can 

 be proved for certain definite numbers in succession. 

 If an indefinite number be taken, the same property 

 can be proved to exist for the number next to it. Hence 

 mathematicians (those most sceptical of men) conclude 

 that this theorem is universally true. Now, to apply 

 this. The existence of variation, however slight that 

 variation might be, once accepted (and a very moderate 

 amount of experience showed that variation did exist), 

 who could doubt that variation might in certain cir- 

 cumstances go on indefinitely ? Whether it would do 

 so or not was another matter ; but what naturalist had 



* " I should add that at this time I had no acquaintance personally or 

 by eoirespondence with either of the discoverers." 



I 



