IIISTOEICiVL SKETCH. 13 



ion it has done excellent service in this country in callinj; attention to the 

 subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground lor the re- 

 ception of analogous views. 



In 1816 the veteran geologist, M. J. d'Omalius d'llalioy, published in au 

 excellent, though short paper {Bulletins dc PAcad. Jioy. JSi-uxcllcs, torn, 

 xiii., p. 581), his oinuion tliut it is more probable that new species have been 

 produced by descent with modification, than that they have been separately 

 created. The author first promulgated this opinion in 1831. 



Trof. Owen, in 1819 ("Nature of Limbs," p. SO), wrote as follows: 

 " The archetypal idea was mauirested in the flesh under divers such modifi- 

 cations, upon this planet, long prior to the existence of those animal species 

 that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or secondary causes the or- 

 derly succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have been 

 committed, we, as yet, are ignorant." In his Address to the British Asso- 

 ciation, in 1858, he speaks (p. li.) of "the axiom of the continuous operation 

 of creative pow'er; or of the ordained becoming of living things." Further on 

 (p. xc), after referring to geograpliical distribution, he adds : " These phe- 

 nomena shake our confidence in the conclusion that the Apteryx of New 

 Zealand and the Red Grouse of England were distinct creations, in and for 

 tho.^e islands respectively. Always, also, it may be well to bear in mind 

 that by the word 'creation' the zoologist means 'a process he knows not 

 what.' " lie amplifies this idea by adding that, when such eases as that of 

 the IJed Grouse arc " enumerated by the zoologist as evidence of distinct 

 creation of the bird in and for such islands, he chiefly expresses that he 

 knows not how the lied Grouse came to be there, and there exclusively, sig- 

 nifying also, by this mode of expressing such ignorance, his belief that both 

 the bird and" the islands owed their origin to a great first Creative Cause." 

 If we interpret these sentences given in the same Address, one by the other, 

 it appears that this eminent philosopher felt, in 1858, his confidence shaken 

 that the Apteryx and the Red Grouse first appeared in their respective 

 homes, "he knew not how," or by some process, "he knew not what." 



This Address was delivered after the papers, by Mr. "Wallace and myself, 

 on the Origin of .'Species, presently to be referred to, had been read before 

 the Linnean Society. "When the first edition of this work was published, I 

 was so completely deceived, as were many others, by such expressions 

 as "the continuous operation of creative power," that I included Prof. 

 Owen with other paleontologists, as being firmly convinced of the immuta- 

 bility of species ; but it appears ("Anat. of Vertebrates," vol. iii., p. 796) that 

 this was on my part a preposterous error. In the last edition of this work I 

 inferred — and the inference still seems to bo perfectly just — from a passage 

 beginning with the words " no doubt the type-form," etc. (ibid., vol. i., p. 

 XXXV.), that Prof. Owen admitted that natural selection may have done 



