220 DARWIN. 



tion, chiefly in the line of degeneration from older 

 and more perfect types.* There is no evidence 

 whatever that he was an evolutionist in the large, 

 comprehensive sense of Lamarck. 



Upon the publication of the Origin of Species, 

 Owen took an unfortunate position of hostility to 

 the evidences for the natural factors of Evolution 

 which Darwin sought to establish, and at the same 

 time claimed that he had long held' a belief in 

 transmutation. In the preface of his Anatomy of 

 Vertebrates, published in 1866, we find the follow- 

 ing sentence : " Therefore, with every disposition to 

 acquire information and receive instruction, as to 

 how species become such, I am still compelled, as 

 in 1849, to confess ignorance of the mode of oper- 

 ation of the natural law or secondary cause of their 

 succession on the earth. But that it is an 'orderly 

 succession,' or according to law, and also 'pro- 

 gressive,' or in the ascending course, is evident 

 from actual knowledge of extinct species." He 

 then goes on to say that the basis of belief in the 

 succession and progression of species was laid by 

 the demonstration of the unity of plan as shown 

 in special and general homologies (Vicq d'Azyr 

 and St. Hilaire), by comparison of embryonic 

 stages of higher animals with the adult forms of 

 lower animals (Meckel, Von Baer), by the succes- 

 sion of species in time. He concludes : " How 

 inherited, or what may be the manner of operance 

 of the secondary cause in the production of species, 



