PKOFESSOR VIECHOW AND EVOLUTION. 405 



a personal artificer. Be that as it may, I make here 

 no claim for the theory of evolution which can reason- 

 ably be refused. 



6 Ten years have elapsed ' said Dr. Hooker at Norwich 

 in 1868 1 'since the publication of tfc The Origin of 

 Species by Natural Selection," and it is therefore not too 

 early now to ask what progress that bold theory has 

 made in scientific estimation. Since the " Origin " 

 appeared it has passed through four English editions, 2 

 two American, two German, two French, several 

 Eussian, a Dutch, and an Italian edition. So far from 

 Natural Selection being a thing of the past [the 

 ' Athenaeum-' had stated it to be so] it is an accepted 

 doctrine with almost every philosophical naturalist, in- 

 cluding, it will always be understood, a considerable 

 proportion who are riot prepared to admit that it 

 accounts for all Mr. Darwin assigns to it.' In the 

 following year, at Innsbruck, Helmholtz took up the 

 same ground. 3 Another decade has now passed, and he \ 

 is simply blind who cannot see the enormous progress | 

 made by the theory during that tirrie. Some of the 

 outward and visible signs of this advance are readily in- 

 dicated. The hostility and fear which so long prevented 

 the recognition of Mr. Darwin by his own university 



1 President's Address to the British Association. 



* Published by Mr. John Murray, the English publisher of Vir- 

 chow's Lecture. Bane and antidote are thus impartially distributed 

 by the same hand. 



3 Noch besteht lebhaf ter Streit um die Wahrheit oder Wahr- 

 scheinlichkeit von Darwin's Theorie ; er dreht sich aber doch eigent- 

 lich nur um die Grenzen, welche wir f iir die Veriinderlichkeit der 

 Arten annehmen diirf en. Dass innerhalb derselben Species erbliche 

 Racenverschiedenheiten auf die von Darwin beschriebene Weise zu 

 kommen konnen, ja dass viele der bisher als verschiedene Species 

 derselben Gattung betrachteten Formen von derselben Urform 

 abstammen, werden auch seine Gegner kaum leugnen.' (Poyiulare 

 Vortrage.} 



