PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. 403 



last conception has a higher ethical value than that of 

 a personal artificer. Be that as it may, I make here no 

 claim for the theory of evolution which can reasonably 

 be refused. 



' Ten years have elapsed ' said Dr. Hooker at Nor- 

 wich in 1868 * * since the publication of " 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, f 

 two American, two German, two French, several Bus- 

 sian, 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 not prepared to admit that it ac- 

 counts for all Mr. Darwin assigns to it.' In the fol- 

 lowing year, at Innsbruck, Helmholtz took up the same 

 ground. J Another decade has now passed, and he is 

 simply blind who cannot see the enormous progress 

 made by the theory during that time. Some of the 

 outward and visible signs of this advance are readily 

 indicated. The hostility and fear which so long pre- 



* President's Address to the British Association. 



f Published by Mr. John Murray, the English publisher of 

 Virchow's Lecture. Bane and antidote are thus impartially dis- 

 tributed by the same hand. 



| Noch besteht lebhafter Streit urn die Wahrheit oder Wahr- 

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

 eigentlich nur urn die Grenzen, welche wir fQr die VerSnderlich- 

 keit der Arten annehmen dQrfen. Dass innerhalb derselben 

 Species erbliche Racenverschiedenheiten auf die von Darwin 

 beschriebene Weisc zu kommen konnen, ja dass viele der bisher 

 als verschiedene Species derselben Gattung betrachteten Formen 

 von derselben Urform abstain men, werden auch seine Gegner 

 kaum leugnen.' (Populdre Vortrdye.) 



