Mr. Grant Allen s Botanical Fables 13 



If these criticisms be true, it may t perhaps be thought 

 that I am simply setting up a man of straw to contend 

 with, and endeavouring to make a point against evolu- 

 tion by fastening on an unfavourable representative of 

 its doctrines. But it must be remembered that Mr. 

 Allen's sermons are delivered in somewhat high places. 

 The papers which we are mainly considering first 

 appeared in the St. James's Gazette^ or in the rival 

 Pall Mall. Like utterances were given forth in the 

 journal called Knowledge which claimed to be the 

 newest organ of science "plainly worded, exactly 

 described." In face of all this we cannot but take Mr. 

 Allen as an authorized exponent of his creed, the only 

 difference between him and others being that he treats 

 of matters which we can more practically understand. 



Enough has perhaps been given in the way of 

 examination, more or less minute, of his various theories. 

 It will be worth while, however briefly, to collect some 

 specimens of the easy way in which stepping-stones 

 are found in the deepest places to help the historian 

 forward to the desired conclusions. Thus we are airily 

 told apropos of Water Crowfoot that one of the 

 Buttercup tribe 1 "took once, under stress of circum- 

 stances, to living pretty permanently in the water." 

 As to the migration of Salmon : 2 " The ancestral fish, 

 only a hundredth fraction in weight of its huge 

 descendant, must have somehow acquired the habit of 

 going seaward" The Cyclostoma 3 "is a gill-breathing 

 pond snail which has taken to living on dry land" In 

 these and numberless other instances, what is the 

 greatest difficulty in the matter is simply set down as 

 a fact, and then used as a basis by means of which to 

 explain the rest. In the last quoted instance it is 

 frankly declared that it is "the light cast upon the 

 question by Darwinism " which vouches for the fact 

 being as stated. In other words Darwinism, which by 

 way of being proved, or at least demonstrated, is taken 



Evolutionist at Large, p. 42. Italics mine throughout, 

 p. 118. * Ibid. p. 177. 



