WHAT IS DARWINISM? 51 



evolutionist, without being a Darwinian. It 

 should be motioned that Mr. Henslow ex- 

 pressly excludes man, both as to body and 

 soul, from the law of evolution. 



Nor is the theory of natural selection the 

 vital principle of Mr. Darwin's theory, unless 

 the word natural be taken in a sense anti- 

 thetical to supernatural. In the historical 

 sketch just referred to, Mr. Darwin not only 

 says that he had been anticipate^ in teaching 

 the doctrine of Evolution by Lamarck and the 

 author of the " Vestiges of Creation ; " but that 

 the theory of natural selection, as the means of 

 accounting for evolution, was not original with 

 him. He tells us that as early as 1813, Dr. 

 W. C. Wells " distinctly recognizes the princi- 

 ple of natural selection ; " and that Mr. Patrick 

 Matthew, in 1831, " gives precisely the same 

 view of the origin of species as that pro- 

 pounded by Mr. Wallace and myself." Ideas 

 are like seed : they are often cast forth, and 

 not finding a congenial soil produce no fruit. 

 To Mr. Darwin is undoubtedly due the elabora- 

 tion and thoroughly scientific defence of the 

 theory of natural selection, and to him is to 

 be referred the deep and widespread interest 

 which it has excited. 



