Introductory . 1 1 



understood that I am there appealing to naturalists 

 who are specialists in Darwinism. One must say 

 advisedly, naturalists who are specialists in Dar- 

 winism, because, while the literature of Darwinism 

 has become a department of science in itself, there 

 are nowadays many naturalists who, without having 

 paid any close attention to the subject, deem them- 

 selves entitled to hold authoritative opinions with 

 regard to it. These men may have done admirable 

 work in other departments of natural history, and yet 

 their opinions on such matters as we shall hereafter 

 have to consider may be destitute of value. As there 

 is no necessary relation between erudition in one 

 department of science and soundness of judgment 

 in another, the mere fact that a man is distinguished 

 as a botanist or zoologist does not in itself qualify him 

 as a critic where specially Darwinian questions are 

 concerned. Thus it happens now, as it happened 

 thirty years ago, that highly distinguished botanists 

 and zoologists prove themselves incapable as judges 

 of general reasoning. It was Darwin's complaint that 

 for many years nearly all his scientific critics either 

 could not, or would not, understand what he had 

 written — and this even as regarded the fundamental 

 principles of his theory, which with the utmost clear- 

 ness he had over and over again repeated. Now the 

 only difference between such naturalists and their 

 successors of the present day is, that the latter have 

 grown up in a Darwinian environment, and so, as 

 already remarked, have more or less thoughtlessly 

 adopted some form of Darwinian creed. But this 

 scientific creed is not a whit less dogm.atic and 

 intolerant than was the more theological one which it 



