Darwinism Verified. 3 



it is not simply that the great body of naturalists 

 have accepted the Darwinian theory : it has be- 

 come part and parcel of their daily thoughts, an 

 element in every investigation which cannot be 

 got rid of. With a tacit consent that is almost 

 unanimous, the classificatory relations among 

 plants and animals have come to be recognized 

 as representing degrees of genetic kinship. One 

 needs but to read constantly such scientific jour- 

 nals as " Nature," or to peer into the proceedings 

 of scientific societies, to see how thoroughly all 

 contemporary inquiry is permeated by the con- 

 ception of natural selection. The record of re- 

 search, whether in embryology, in palaeontology, 

 or in the study of the classification and distri- 

 bution of organized beings, has come to be the 

 registration of testimony in support of Mr. Dar- 

 win's hypothesis. So deeply, indeed, has this 

 mighty thinker impressed his thoughts on the 

 mind of the age that in order fully to unfold the 

 connotations of the word " Darwinism " one could 

 hardly stop short of making an index to the 

 entire recent literature of the organic sciences. 

 The sway of natural selection in biology is hardly 

 less complete than that of gravitation in astron- 

 omy ; and thus it is probably true that no other 

 scientific discoverer has within his own lifetime 



