T 



CHAPTER VI. 



CONTROVERSY AND PROGRESS. 

 Darwin's " Origin of Species." 



HE culmination of all the tentative efforts 

 which had hitherto been made, towards giving 

 a rational explanation of the mode of production 

 of the divers species of our existing fauna and flora, 

 was in the publication of Darwin's now famous work, 

 " The Origin of Species," which was given to the 

 world in 1859. Simultaneously and "independently 

 another naturalist, Mr. Alfred Wallace, who was then 

 far away in the Malay Archipelago, had come to the 

 same conclusions as Darwin. For this reason he is 

 justly called the co-discoverer of the theory which 

 has made Darwin so famous. 



The publication of "The Origin of Species" was 

 the signal for a revolution in science such as the 

 world had never before witnessed. The work was 

 violently denounced or ridiculed by the majority of 

 its readers, although it counted from the beginning 

 such staunch defenders as Huxley, Spncer, Lyell, 

 Hooker, Wallace, and Asa Gray. Professor Louis 

 Agassiz, probably the ablest naturalist then living, 

 in his criticism of the book declared : " The argu- 

 ments presented by Darwin, in favor of a universal 

 derivation from one primary form of all the pecul- 

 iarities existing now among living beings, have 



E.-5 (65) 



