Want of Evidence. 201 



selection, that characterised the " Origin of Species," 

 and drew the attention of mankind to it. It was 

 the recognition of the incessant and universal opera- 

 tion of the factors, the masterly co-ordination of the 

 facts of biology — zoology, botany, anatomy, general 

 morphology, physiology, embryology, palaeontology 

 — and geology, the marshalling in orderly array and 

 concentration in one direction of all natural knowl- 

 edge, the force of the logic, the clearness of the 

 exposition, the judicial candour of the argument, 

 that arrested men's attention, and provoked serious 

 consideration of what before had been ignored as 

 being beyond the domain or possibilities of investi- 

 gation. In the time of Lamarck the world was not 

 ready for a consideration of the question. Lamarck's 

 was the prophecy of intuitive genius — genius the 

 greater in that the facts that had been garnered 

 were few. The " Vestiges of Creation " was so re- 

 plete with errors of fact and misconceptions as to 

 attract more attention to the fault of its details that 

 to the logic of its argument. The principle of natu- 

 ral selection had been applied to very special fields 

 by Wells and Matthews ; no evidence had been fur- 

 nished of its wide extension, and it even occupied a 

 subordinate position in the thoughts of those investi- 

 gators. 



The author of the " Origin of Species " was a dif- 

 ferent man from his predecessors, and lived in a hap- 

 pier time. The facts had been accumulated and co- 

 ordinated ; men were ready to consider the reason 

 why facts were such, and none was better fitted than 

 Darwin — I should rather say none was so well fitted 



