ON THE GENETIC VIEW OF NATURE. 



327 



through periodical and popular literature. Others who, 

 before Darwin, treated similar controversial subjects, such 

 as Whewell, Babbage, Herschel, Lyell, Baden Powell, 

 and the author of the ' Vestiges,' had always taken 

 into account the possible inferences which might be 

 drawn from their scientific statements, and had often- 

 times toned them down so as not to offend existing 

 opinions. 1 Darwin thought it more modest and more 

 becoming for an independent scientific thinker to state 

 his side of the question completely and simply, without 

 presuming to attack or to support a view of things 

 which lay outside of the dominion and the powers of 

 science. And this is not the least of the many reasons 

 why his work has created an era, especially in this 



1 The position adopted by several 

 of the eminent forerunners of Dar- 

 win is interestingly analysed by 

 Huxley in the chapter on the " Re- 

 ception of the ' Origin of Species ' " 

 contributed to the second volume 

 of the ' Life and Letters of Charles 

 Darwin.' Of Lyell, who had come 

 nearest to the doctrine of unbroken 

 descent of species, Huxley says 

 (vol. ii. p. 193) : " I see no reason 

 to doubt that if Sir Charles Lyell 

 c6uld have avoided the inevitable 

 corollary of the pithecoid origin of 

 man for which to the end of his 

 life he entertained a profound 

 antipathy he would have advo- 

 cated the efficiency of causes now 

 in operation to bring about the 

 condition of the organic world, as 

 stoutly as he championed that 

 doctrine in reference to inorganic 

 nature." And Lyell himself wrote 

 to Darwin in 1863 (' Life of Lyell,' 

 vol. ii. p. 365) : " I remember that 

 it was the conclusion he [Lamarck] 

 came to about man that fortified 

 me thirty years ago against the 

 great impression which his argu- 



ments at first made on my mind." 

 Treviranus, the author of the 

 ' Biologie, ' the contemporary of 

 Lamarck, was quite consistent in 

 his views of descent and mutabil- 

 ity, for he declares against catas- 

 trophism, believes in the evolution 

 of higher species from the zoophytes, 

 and even in that of a higher species 

 than man (see ' Biologic,' vol. ii. 

 p. 225, &c.) Neither in Germany 

 nor in France, at the beginning of 

 the century, did those prejudices 

 exist which in 1859 prevented even 

 Darwin from developing to the full 

 the consequences of his main thesis. 

 This was done in his later works. 

 See his letter to A. R. Wallace, 

 22nd Dec. 1857 ('Life,' vol. ii. p. 

 109): "You ask whether I shall 

 discuss 'man.' I think I* shall 

 avoid the whole subject, as so sur- 

 rounded with prejudices ; though 

 I fully admit that it is the highest 

 and most interesting problem for 

 the naturalist. My work, on which 

 I have now been at work more or 

 less for twenty years, will not fix 

 or settle anything." 



