vi Preface. 



hypothesis of evolution is almost universally 

 taken as proved, and while fierce war is waged 

 over its details, the primary grounds adduced for 

 its support have been accepted with far too 

 much facility and too little investigation. I 

 have, therefore, published some reflections 

 upon facts within my knowledge, which may 

 tend to exhibit this important subject in a 

 new light 



I have endeavoured to keep a broad distinc- 

 tion between evolutionism in general and Dar- 

 winism in particular. An evolutionist is one 

 who believes it to be scientifically demonstrable, 

 or at any rate to be much the most probable 

 hypothesis, that living types originate by de- 

 velopment the one out of the other, under the 

 influence of agencies at work now, and which 

 we are capable of knowing now, or may expect 

 to know in a reasonable time. A Darwinian, 

 in addition to this, believes that the sole or 

 principal agency by which living types are 



