80 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



H. G. Seeley exhibited a restoration of the same 

 fossil. Dr. Wright, the palaeontologist, old and 

 deaf, but staunch as ever, would have none of it. 

 * Archaeopteryx hasn't got a head. How can it 

 possibly have teeth ? ' he asked angrily, thinking 

 of the older specimen in the British Museum. 

 But even in this, the remains of the head, 

 detached from the body, had been made out by 

 Sir John Evans in a corner of the block of oolite, 

 while the teeth were found scattered over the 

 surface of the stone. Prof. Newton's emphatic 

 assertion that the bird had teeth left him quite 

 unshaken, and even after Prof. Marsh, called on 

 by the chairman, had drawn their form on the 

 blackboard, and the section was proceeding to 

 other business, Dr. Wright could be heard 

 muttering savagely, 'Archaeopteryx is a very 

 good bird/ And its excellence was in his 

 opinion obviously incompatible with reptilian 

 affinity. Disbelief in evolution was with him a 

 matter of faith and could never have been 

 affected by any amount of evidence. 



About twelve years after the appearance of the 

 Origin, another opponent, St. George Mivart, 

 produced something of the same bitterness as 

 Owen, and for a similar reason. Thus Darwin 

 wrote to Hooker, Sept. 16, 1871, as follows : 



' You never read such strong letters Mivart wrote to me 

 about respect towards me, begging that I would call on him, 

 etc., etc. ; yet in the Q. Review [July, 1871] he shows the 

 greatest scorn and animosity towards me, and with un- 



