DARWIN, AND AFTER DARWIN* 



CHAPTER I. 

 INTRODUCTORY. 



AMONG the many and unprecedented changes that 

 have been wrought by Mr. Darwin's work on the Origin 

 of Species, there is one which, although second in im- 

 portance to no other, has not received the attention 

 which it deserves. I allude to the profound modifi- 

 cation which that work has produced on the ideas of 

 naturalists with regard to method. 



Having had occasion of late years somewhat closely 

 to follow the history of biological science, I have every- 

 where observed that progress is not so much marked 

 by the march of discovery per se, as by the altered 

 views of method which the march has involved. If. 

 we except what Aristotle called " the first start " in 

 himself, I think one may fairly say that from the re- 

 juvenescence of biology in the sixteenth century to 

 the stage of growth which it has now reached in the 

 nineteenth, there is a direct proportion to be found 

 between the value of work done and the degree in 

 which the worker has thereby advanced the true 

 conception of scientific working. Of course, up to a 



* B 



