22 SPREAD OF EVOLUTION. [1863. 



attempt to explain specific transmutation are in fact related 

 to it in this wise, that they have prepared the minds of 

 naturalists for a better reception of such attempts to explain 

 the way of the origin of species from species." 



To this my father replied as follows in the Athenaum of 

 May Qth, 1863 :] 



Down, May 5 [1863]. 



I hope that you will grant me space to own that your 

 reviewer is quite correct when he states that any theory of 

 descent will connect, " by an intelligible thread of reasoning,'* 

 the several generalizations before specified. I ought to have 

 made this admission expressly ; with the reservation, how- 

 ever, that, as far as I can judge, no theory so well explains or 

 connects these several generalizations (more especially the 

 formation of domestic races in comparison with natural 

 species, the principles of classification, embryonic resemblance, 

 &c.) as the theory, or hypothesis, or guess, if the reviewer so 

 likes to call it, of Natural Selection. Nor has any other 

 satisfactory explanation been ever offered of the almost 

 perfect adaptation of all organic beings to each other, and to 

 their physical conditions of life. Whether the naturalist 

 believes in the views given by Lamarck, by Geoffroy St. 

 Hilaire, by the author of the * Vestiges,' by Mr. Wallace and 

 myself, or in any other such view, signifies extremely little in 

 comparison with the admission that species have descended 

 from other species, and have not been created immutable ; 

 for he who admits this as a great truth has a wide field 

 opened to him for further inquiry. I believe, however, from 

 what I see of the progress of opinion on the Continent, and in 

 this country, that the theory of Natural Selection will 

 ultimately be adopted, with, no doubt, many subordinate 

 modifications and improvements. 



CHARLES DARWIN. 



