PREFACE. . y 



tween sixteen and seventeen years ago, immediately 

 after the publication of Darwin's " Origin of Species 

 by Means of Natural Selection," as a review of that 

 volume, wliicli, it was tben foreseen, was to initiate a 

 revolution in general scientific opinion. Long before 

 our last article was written, it could be affirmed that 

 the general doctrine of the derivation of species (to 

 put it comprehensively) has prevailed over that of 

 specific creation', at least to the extent of being the re- 

 ceived and presumably m some sense true conception. 

 Far from undertaking any general discussion of evo- 

 lution, several even of Mr. Darwin's writings have 

 not been noticed, and topics which have been much 

 discussed elsewhere are not here adverted to. This 

 applies especially to what may be called deductive 

 evolution — a subject which lay beyond the writer's 

 immediate scope, and to which neither the bent of 

 his mind nor the line of his studies has fitted him to 

 do justice. If these papers are useful at all, it will 

 be as showing how these new views of our day are 

 regarded by^ a practical naturalist, versed in one de- 

 partment only (viz.. Botany), most interested in their 

 bearings upon its special problems, one accustomed to 

 direct and close dealing with the facts in hand, and 

 disposed to rise from them only to the consideration 

 of those general questions upon which they throw 

 or from which they receive illustration. . 



