174 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



simmered round the question. De Maillet, a contem- 

 porary of Newton, has been brought into notice by 

 Professor Huxley as one who ' had a notion of the 

 modifiability of living forms.' The late Sir Benjamin 

 Brodie, a man of highly philosophic mind, often drew 

 my attention to the fact that, as early as 1794, Charles 

 Darwin's grandfather was the pioneerof Charles Darwin. l 

 In 1801, and in subsequent years, the celebrated 

 Lamarck, who, through the vigorous exposition of his 

 views by the author of the c Vestiges of Creation,' ren- 

 dered the public mind perfectly familiar with the idea 

 of evolution, endeavoured to show the development of 

 species out of changes of habit and external condition. 

 In 1813 Dr. Wells, the founder of our present theory of 

 Dew, read before the Koyal Society a paper in which, 

 to use the words of Mr. Darwin, ' he distinctly re- 

 cognises the principle of natural selection ; and this 

 is the first recognition that has been indicated.' The 

 thoroughness and skill with which Wells pursued his 

 work, and the obvious independence of his character, 

 rendered him long ago a favourite with me ; and it 

 gave me the liveliest pleasure to alight upon this 

 additional testimony to his penetration. Professor 

 Grant, Mr. Patrick Matthew, Von Buch, the author of 

 the ' Vestiges,' D'ttalloy, and others, by the enunciation 

 of opinions more or less clear and correct, showed that 

 the question had been fermenting long prior to the I 

 year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace simul- 

 taneously, but independently, placed their closely con- 

 current views before the Linnean Society. 2 



1 'Zoonomia,' vol. i. pp. 500-510. 



2 In 1855 Mr. Herbert Spencer ('Principles of Psychology,' 2nd 

 edit. vol. i.p. 465) expressed 'the belief that life under all its forms 

 has arisen by an unbroken evolution, and through the instrumen- 

 tality of what are called natural causes.' This was my belief also 

 at that time. 



