112 



" I suggest, then, as an hyjiothesis already countenanced by raucli 

 that is ascertained, and Hkely to be further sanctioned by much that 

 remains to be known, that the first [second ?] step was an advance 

 under f avow of peculiar conditions^ from the simplest forms of being 

 to the next more complicated, and this through the medium of the 

 ordinary process of generation.'''' — pp. 204, 205. 



" The idea, then, that I form of the progress of organic life upon the 

 globe, is, that the simplest and most primitive type, under a law to 

 which that of like-production is subordinate, gave birth to the type 

 next above it, that this again produced the next higher, and so on to 

 the very highest, the stages of advance being in all cases very small — 

 namely, from one species only to another ; so that the phenomenon 

 has always been of a simple and modest character." — p. 222. 



The author of these passages would seem to be slenderly acquaint- 

 ed with Zoology, and still less conversant with Botany. He has thus 

 written under considerable disadvantages ; for it is to these sciences 

 he must turn in search of facts which bear upon the transmutation of 

 one species into another, or the production of one species from ano- 

 ther different one. Our concern is with matters botanical ; and we 

 cannot compliment the author, on the value of his botanical eviden- 

 ces, which are here copied in his own words. 



" It appears that, whenever oats sown at the usual time are kept 

 cropped down during summer and autumn, and allowed to remain 

 over the winter, a thin crop of rye is the harvest presented at the close 

 of the ensuing summer. This experiment has been tried repeatedly, 

 with but one result ; invariably the Secale cereale is the crop reaped 

 where the Avena saliva, a recognized different species, was sown." 

 * * " Perhaps those curious facts that have been stated with 



regard to forests of one kind of trees, when burnt down, being suc- 

 ceeded (without planting) by other kinds, may yet be found most ex- 

 plicable, as this is, upon the hypothesis of a progression of species 

 which takes place under certain favouring conditions, now apparently 

 of rare occurrence." — p. 221. 



Assuming these to be veritable facts, it may be suggested to the 

 author, that they overprove his theory. The change of the oat into 

 rye, is a pretty wide generic leap. And I am not at all aware that a 

 burnt forest is forthwith succeeded by trees nearest allied, in specific 

 or generic characters, to those which have been destroyed. The phe- 

 nomena are here scarcely those of " a simple and modest character," 

 or an advance " from one species only to another." Had we been 

 told that the Avena strigosa could be so converted into the Avena 



