CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY INQUIRIES — ORIGIN OF SPECIES SPECIFIC CENTRES. 



Before euteriiig on the special subject of this work, there are one or two topics on which I should 

 wish to make some profession of faith. The chief of these is Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of 

 species. A man's opinion on this subject must necessarily and unconsciously modify his views on 

 many other important points, and it becomes a matter of some moment to the reader to know from 

 what point of view the author regards things. When he once knows that, the reader can 

 himself apply a compensation-balance to reduce the author's conclusions to his own standard. 



I the more desire to explain the views which I now hold regarding the origin of species, that 

 some years since (shortly after the first appearance of Mr. Darwin's work), I took exception to it, and 

 urged various objections to his theory.* Some of these I still maintain, but others I have seen reason 

 to modify. If it were a mere recantation that I had to make, a couple of lines would be sufficient for 

 that purpose ; I should not detain the reader long in announcing that whereas I had formerly been 

 an opponent of Mr. Darwin's views, I was now a supporter. But it is not so. In some respects, I 

 have come nearer to Mr. Darwin's views ; but in others I still difier from him, if not as much 

 as before, at least sufiiciently to render some explanation necessary to the understanding of 

 m}'' opinions. 



It is not, however, by way of ojjjjosition to his that I offer mine. The reader will see that 

 mine are ratlier of the nature of a sequel to his, or an attempt to work out the truth by the 

 light of his previous labours. If I have been in any respect successful in throwing more light 

 upon the subject, I owe it to the ideas suggested by his works. 



Tlie objections which I took to his theorj^ were not to the origin of species by derivation or 

 descent — but to the machinery by which he supposed this to take place; viz., development by 

 long-continued gradual variation and selection through the struggle for life. 



I thoroughly accepted the theory that species are not produced by independent creation, but 

 that, under the operation of a general law, the germs of organisms produce new forms different from 

 themselves, when particular circumstances call the law into action. I held very much the invo- 

 lution theory of Bonnet and Priestley,! " that all the germs of future plants, organical bodies of 

 all kinds, and the reproducible parts of them, were really contained in the first germ." That 

 theory appeared to me to furnish a satisfactory explanation of the homologies in structure and 

 of the relationships between species which are everywhere apparent throughout the organized 

 world. 



If, on the concurrence of particular circimistances, a law comes into action effecting an 



* " Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh," ICtli t Pkiestlet, " Disquisitions relating to Jtattcr anil 



January, 18C0. Si>irit," vol. i. p. 201. Birmingham, 17S2. 



