CHAP. XI.] AN EPISODE. 335 



that conclusion, on scientific grounds only, after careful re 

 consideration of those grounds and much discussion of the 

 subject, I ventured to publish my Genesis of Species. 

 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. 



&quot; This conviction had forced itself on many minds before 

 the publication of my book, and since then has approved 

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

 himself seems to have corne 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. 



&quot; 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 and genius 

 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 well 

 prepared for, and disposed towards, evolution years before 

 the appearance of * The Origin of Species. 



&quot; Biological facts, by their gradual accumulation, had long 

 been predisposing scientific minds to the acceptance of this 

 theory. I myself, indeed, fully accepted it, and I found that 

 a similar acceptance existed in the minds of others, notably 

 in that of Professor Owen. Mr. Wright, therefore, is cer- 



