xiv PREFACE 



The failure of the earlier attacks on the Origin 

 has been referred to in many pages of this book ; 

 but my chief object throughout has been to speak 

 of Darwinism and of Darwin himself. Hence 

 Mendelism, entirely unknown to the illustrious 

 naturalist, is on this occasion barely mentioned. 1 

 The conception of evolution by mutation, on the 

 other hand, is shown to have been from the first 

 entirely familiar to Darwin, and entirely rejected 

 by him. In the Quarterly Review 2 for July. 1909, 

 I have ' endeavoured to set forth necessarily 

 with brevity the chief results of those modern 

 investigations which, after fifty years, are now 

 believed to be charged with menace for the 

 Darwin- Wallace hypothesis ' ; and I will con- 

 clude by quoting the final words of the article : 

 * The inspiration of these investigations has at- 

 tracted a numerous band of enthusiastic and 

 devoted labourers, who have achieved and are 

 achieving results of the highest interest and im- 

 portance. No one of these, it is here maintained, 

 can be reasonably held to make good the 'claims 

 of the modern opponent of natural selection and 

 evolution as conceived by Darwin. The only 

 fundamental changes in the doctrine given to us 



1 See however the close of Appendix D Attention is directed 

 in Section VI to certain North American butterflies which appear 

 to afford a peculiarly favourable opportunity of testing the 

 working of Mendel's law under natural conditions. 



2 'The Centenary of Darwin: Darwin and his Modern Critics,' 

 1-38. 



