DARWIN AND MULTIPLE ORIGINS 253 



' I dispute whether a new race or species is necessarily, or 

 even generally, descended from a single or pair of parents. 

 The whole body of individuals, I believe, become altered 

 together like our race-horses, and like all domestic breeds 

 which are changed through "unconscious selection" by man.' 



This passage was written (Nov. 25, 1869) in a 

 letter to G. Bentham as a criticism of the follow- 

 ing passage in his presidential address to the 

 Linnean Society on May 24, 1869 : 



' We must also admit that every race has probably been 

 the offspring of one parent or pair of parents, and conse- 

 quently originated in one spot.' 



The Duke of Argyll had inverted Bentham's pro- 

 position, as pointed out by Sir W. Thiselton- 

 Dyer. 



On this remarkable page in the history of 

 thought we see how Darwin, by sure and pene- 

 trating genius, rises to heights far beyond those 

 attained by the men of his own and later days. 

 We see Lyell in fear and doubt lest his cherished 

 belief in ' single centres of creation ' should be 

 endangered by the one man who held the same 

 belief on much stronger grounds. We find the 

 great geologist, at a later stage, ready to give up 

 his belief if he can thereby obtain a weapon 

 against evolution ; and observe, in Darwin's 

 answer to him and to the Duke of Argyll, an 

 entire grasp of the problem conspicuously want- 

 ing in those authorities who expressed, at a 

 later date, an ill-founded enthusiasm for the 

 worthless hypothesis of multiple origins. 



