DARWIN'S ORIGIN OF SPECIES 227 



and " Ability " respectively. Chapters VI. and VII. consider 

 the important questions of the " Rise " and " Decline of Families " 

 respectively. Chapters VIII., IX., and X. deal with problems 

 of the " Birth-rate," the efiects of a selective birth-rate, and the 

 causes of a declining one are very fully considered. Chapter XI. 

 gives general conclusions, and summarises the previous chapters. 



G. P. M. 



Charles Darwin and the Origin of S\itcks,— Addresses, 



<&e., in America and England in the year of the two 

 Anniversaries. By Edward Bagnall Poulton, D.Sc, MA., 

 F.R.S., Hope Professor of Zoology in the University of 

 Oxford. Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co. Price Is. 6d. net. 



This book is dedicated to Alfred Russel Wallace. It is divided 

 into seven Sections or Addresses, and there are four Appendices. 

 The first Section attempts to wive a brief account of the 

 history which led up to and followed the publication of the 

 theory of Natural Selection and the Origin of Species. It is 

 entitled " Fifty Years of Darwinism," and was one of the cen- 

 tennial addresses in honour of Charles Darwin which were read 

 before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 at Baltimore, on January 1st, 1909. To the present generation, 

 that has been born long after the struggle which the enunciation 

 of the Origin of Species and the Descent of Man called into 

 tempestuous existence, and that finds itself Uving in a 

 period of complete intellectual Uberty — perhaps in some directions 

 too complete — this Section of the book cannot fail to be of the 

 greatest interest and stimulus. It is difficult for the young men 

 of to-day to fully appreciate the magnitude of the great victory 

 which was achieved for freedom of thought during the earlier 

 half of the fifty years that began with the publication of the 

 Origin of Species. So deeply rooted were the religious convictions 

 of men, so firm a hold had the orthodox conception of Man's 

 origin upon men's minds, that even some of the scientific savants 

 of the period who eventually recognised the success of the new 

 doctrine of Organic Evolution, did so with feelings of regret, 

 and others who ultimately accepted it, felt a reluctance 

 in so doing. How fearsome was the spirit that pervaded many 

 — even men of science — at that period, may be gathered from a 

 quotation of a letter which Darmn sent to Fawcett on September 

 18th. 1861 : " Many are so fearful of speaking out. A German 

 naturalist came here the other day, and he tells me that there 

 are many in Germany on our side, but that all seem fearful of 

 speaking out, and waiting for some one to speak, and then many 



