PREFACE v 



readers, and are for the most part fully acknowledged 

 already in the text. It would be absurd to overload so 

 small and popularly written a book with references and 

 authorities. I hope, therefore, that any other writers to 

 whom I may inadvertently have neglected to confess my 

 debts will kindly rest satisfied with this general acknow- 

 ledgment. There are, however, three persons in par- 

 ticular from whom I have so largely borrowed facts or 

 ideas that I owe them more special and definite thanks. 

 From Mr. Woodall's admirable paper on Charles Dar- 

 win, contributed to the ' Transactions of the Shropshire 

 Archagological Society,' I have taken much interesting 

 information about my hero's immediate ancestry and 

 early days. From Mr. Samuel Butler, the author of 

 ' Evolution Old and New/ I have derived many preg- 

 nant suggestions with regard to the true position and 

 meaning of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and the early 

 essentially teleological evolutionists suggestions which 

 I am all the more anxious to acknowledge since I differ 

 fundamentally from Mr. Butler in his estimate of the 

 worth of Charles Darwin's distinctive discovery of 

 natural selection. Finally, to Mr. Bates, the ' Naturalist 

 on the Amazons,' I am indebted for several valuable 

 items of information as to the general workings of the 

 pre-Darwinian evolutionary spirit. 



In a book dealing so largely with a contemporary 



