84 BIOGRAPHIES OF SCIENTIFIC MEN 



the career of the latter, arresting his development in certain 

 directions. This is unfortunately shown in Owen's atti- 

 tude towards Darwinism ; he did not accept the doctrine 

 of the mutability of species, the common descent of every 

 animal and plant from formless or seemingly structureless 

 masses of matter which, through an infinite series of 

 changes, have become modified into the teeming forms 

 that have flourished or that now flourish on this planet, 

 which was satirically termed by Voltaire "le meilleur 

 des mondes possible." But if Owen failed to appreciate 

 the modern doctrine of evolution (he was fifty-five years 

 old when Darwin's Origin of Species was issued), he had 

 published nearly four hundred monographs, books, etc., 

 and, like Priestley in another science, could not conscien- 

 tiously alter his views. His attitude caused bitter resent- 

 ment in certain quarters. He made, however, solid and 

 permanently valuable contributions to natural history, and 

 his " monographic work occupies a unique position." 



His work on the anthropoid apes, on the Monotremes 

 and Marsupials, on the Apteryx, the Great Auk and the 

 Dodo, on Lepidosiren, on the Cephalopoda, on Limulus, 

 on the Brachiopoda, and on Trichina spiralis, are all of 

 the highest importance. Likewise his work on Darwin's 

 extinct mammal of South America, Toxodon Platensis, 

 " referable by its dentition to the Rodentia, but with 

 affinities to the Pachydermata and the herbivorous 

 Cetacea " ; and his other memoirs on the extinct fauna 



