lo Unconscious Memory 



of the " Origin of Species " Mr, Darwin's great precursors^ 

 were all either ignored or misrepresented. Moreover, the 

 " brief but imperfect sketch," when it did come, was so 

 very brief, but, in spite of this (for this is what I suppose 

 Mr. Darwin must mean), so very imperfect, that it might 

 as well have been left unwritten for all the help it gave the 

 reader to see the true question at issue between the original 

 propounders of the theory of evolution and :Mr. Charles 

 Darwin himself. 



That question is this : Whether variation is in the main 

 attributable to a known general principle, or whether it is 

 not ? — whether the minute variations whose accumula- 

 tion results in specific and generic differences are refer- 

 able to something which will ensure their appearing in a 

 certain definite direction, or in certain definite directions, 

 for long periods together, and in many individuals, or 

 whether they are not ? — whether, in a word, these varia- 

 tions are in the main definite or indefinite ? 



It is observable that the leading men of science seem 

 rarely to understand this even now. I am told that Pro- 

 fessor Huxley, in his recent lecture on the coming of age 

 of the " Origin of Species," never so much as alluded to 

 the existence of any such division of opinion as this. He 

 did not even, I am assured, mention " natural selection," 

 but appeared to believe, with Professor Tyndall,^ that 

 "evolution" is "Mr. Darwin's theory." In his article 

 on evolution in the latest edition of the " Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica," I find only a veiled perception of the point 

 wherein Mr. Darwin is at \-ariance with his precursors.. 

 Professor Huxley evidently knows little of these writers 

 beyond their names ; if he had known more, it is impossible 

 he should have written that " Buffon contributed nothing 

 to the general doctrine of evolution," ^ and that Erasmus 

 Darwin, " though a zealous evolutionist, can hardly be 



* Nineteenth Century, November 1878 ; Evolution, Old and New, 

 pp. 360, 361. 



^ Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. ix., art. " Evolution," p. 748. 



