200 Charles Darwin. 



broached in sober earnest. Then followed on every 

 hand torrents of detraction and abuse. The natural- 

 ists of the old school and the priests of revelation 

 met on common ground, and loud and bitter was 

 the denunciation. Numerous were the arguments 

 against the new theory. 



But why this great turmoil and uproar ? Darwin 

 was not the first to believe that species had been 

 derived and not created. So had philosophers be- 

 lieved before ; the grandfather of Darwin believed 

 and urged the belief ; a great naturalist at the com- 

 mencement of the century — Lamarck — boldly and 

 wisely formulated a theory of evolution ; the " Ves- 

 tiges of Creation " took up the view, and gained 

 marked attention in Britain. Even a clergyman of 

 the English Church, the Savilian professor in ortho- 

 /^ox Oxford, the Rev. Baden Powell, in 1855, had 

 considered the " Philosophy of Creation " in a " mas- 

 terly manner," and Darwin bore testimony that noth- 

 ing can be more striking than the manner in which 

 the enlightened priest showed that the introduction 

 of new species is a regular phenomenon in con- 

 itradistinction to a miraculous process. Darwin was 

 not the first even to c onceiv e oj the principle of natu- 

 ral^election. TTn American resident in England, Dr. 

 W. C7 Wells, as early as 181 3, had recognised the 

 operation of the principle in the distribution of the 

 human race. In 1831, Patrick Matthews also appre- 

 ciated the principle of natural selection ; so Darwin 

 himself witnesses. 



It was not, then, the mere enunciation of the 

 theory of evolution, nor of the principle of natural 



