Natural Selection. 197 



voice of the civilised world proclaims — how grievous 

 the loss the lamentations of mankind testify. Less 

 than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the 

 publication of " The Origin of Species by Means of 

 Natural Selection." How great is the contrast be- 

 tween the beliefs and practice of naturalists before 

 its appearance and those of their present successors ! 



[e would, indeed, have been a bold man who would 

 have predicted that, in two decades after its appear- 

 ance, the views therein promulgated would be uni- 

 versally accepted and be taken as the recognised 

 platform of biologists. But the incredible has actually 

 happened : all the students of nature, and in every 

 land ; zoologists and botanists, palaeontologists and 

 geologists ; in America and Europe, at the confines 

 of Asia, the extreme of Africa, and in distant Aus- 

 tralia, — all meet on common ground as evolutionists ; 

 all recognise to a greater or less extent the operation 

 ^f natural selection in the survival of the fittest. To 

 appreciate the cause of the profound impression 

 produced by the deceased naturalist's greatest work, 

 some reference to the antecedent and succeeding 

 conditions is fitting. 



It had been, from time immemorial, a generally 

 accepted idea that the living beings which people the 

 globe had, in some mysterious manner, been each 

 " created " separately ; but how, few ventured to 

 express in words, for the mere attempt to do so con- 

 jured up such strange fancies that the intelligent 

 mind drew back in revolt and refused to consider 

 them. Now, it is a recognised scientific creed that 

 the animals and plants which have successively in- 



