64 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



Britain the opposition to the views expressed in the 

 work was violent in the extreme, although it seems 

 that most of the adverse criticism was ill-founded. 

 The main proposition of the author, determined on 

 as he himself declares " after much consideration," 

 is, " that the several series of animated beings, from 

 the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most 

 recent, are, under the providence of God, the results, 

 first, of an impulse which has been imparted to the 

 forms of life, advancing them in definite times, by 

 generation, through grades of organization termi- 

 nating in the highest dicotyledons and vertebrata, 

 these grades being few in number, and generally 

 marked by intervals of organic character which we 

 find to be a practical difficulty in ascertaining affini- 

 ties ; second, of another impulse connected with the 

 vital forces, tending in the course of generations to 

 modify organic structures in accordance with exter- 

 nal circumstances, as food, the nature of the habitat 

 and the meteoric agencies, these being the adapta- 

 tions of the natural theologian." 



Prior to this time the distinguished Belgian geol- 

 ogist, D' Omalius d' Halloy, had expressed the opin- 

 ion that new species are but modified forms of other 

 species from which they are descended. And a 

 short time subsequently the eminent French bota- 

 nist, M. Charles Naudin, promulgated similar views, 

 and taught that species as well as varieties are but 

 the result of natural and artificial selection. He did 

 not, it is true, employ these words words which 

 were given such vogue a short time afterwards by 

 Darwin but his theory implied all they express. 



