I 



specific Genesis 105 



accepted from him the view that Natural Selection was ' the 

 origin of species.' It was only by degrees, and through the 

 evidence of a multitude of biological facts, that an opposite 

 conclusion was gradually forced upon me. Having come to 

 that conclusion, on scientific grounds only, after careful recon- 

 sideration of those grounds and much discussion of the sub- 

 ject, I ventured to publish my Genesis of Sioecies. Therein 

 I endeavoured to bring before the public the leading facts 

 which had produced the conviction in my own mind that 

 Natural Selection was not the origin of species, not the main 

 determining agent in the fixation of specific characters; 

 although I allowed that it played, and necessarily must play, 

 a certain subordinate part. 



This conviction had forced itself on many minds before 

 the pubKcation of my book, and since then has approved 

 itself to the minds of many more. Indeed, Mr. Darwin him- 

 self seems to have come round substantially, though not 

 avowedly, to the same opinion, and has, in his Descent of 

 Man, implicitly admitted, though he has not yet explicitly 

 declared, that Natural Selection is not the origin of species. 

 I cannot but confess that it appears to me even Mr. Chauncey 

 Wright himself concedes all that for which I contend, though 

 he at the same time seems to imagine that he asserts the 

 validity of Mr. Darwin's original position. 



No one could be less disposed than I am to detract from 

 the great merit unquestionably due to Mr. Darwin, or to 

 ignore the vast impetus which his views have given to the 

 wide reception of the doctrine of evolution. Nevertheless, we 

 must not allow our just admiration for the zeal, genius, and 

 courage of Mr. Darwin to blind our eyes to two facts. One 

 of these is that an important part of Mr. Darwin's theory was 

 not new, but, on the contrary, very old. The other is, that 

 though the popular acceptance of evolution has been brought 

 about through him, yet that the minds of scientific men were 



