AT THE MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 315 
his suppositions to the facts set before us, we must, I think, admit that they 
may explain some, and are incompatible with others; and it appears to me 
that Pangenesis will be admitted by many as a provisional hypothesis, to be 
further tested, and to be discarded only when a more plausible one shall be 
brought forward.’ 
* Ten years have elapsed since the publication of ‘ The Origin of Species by 
* Atheneum,’ has very recently told to every country where the English lan- 
guage is read, that Mr. Darwin’s theory is a thing of the past; that natural 
selection is rapidly declining in scientific favour, and that as regards the above 
> 
they 
ailed re- 
, tw 
and an Italian; whilst of the work on * Variation, which first left the pub- 
lisher’s house not seven months ago, two English, a German, Russian, Ameri- 
can, and Italian editions are in circulation. So far from natural selec- 
rs 
proportion who are not prepared to admit that it accounts for all that Mr. 
Darwin assigns to it. 
* Reviews on ‘ The Origin of Species’ are still pouring in from the Continent ; 
and Agassiz, in one of the addresses to his collaborateurs on their late voyage 
to the Amazons, directs their attention to this theory as a primary object of 
the expedition they were then undertaking. [Agassiz himself states that the 
who have accepted it, not one has been known to abandon it ; that it gains ad- 
herents steadily ; and that it is, par excellence, an avowed favourite with the 
rising school of naturalists; perhaps, indeed, too much so, for the young are 
apt to accept such theories as urticles of faith, and the creed of the student is 
cal grounds, or metaphysical, or both. Of those who rely on taphy à 
their arguments are usually strongly imbued with theological prejudice, and 
even odium, and, as such, beyond the pale of scientific crit I long ago 
arrived at the conclusion, so well put by Agassiz, where he says, ' We trust that 
the time is not distant when it will be universally understood that the battle of 
the evidences will have to be fought on the field of physical science, and not 
on that of the metaphysical.’ Many of the metaphysician’s objections have 
