NA TURE 



[November i, i !S94 



At one time, the astronomers underwent sundry per- 

 turbations, yet these somehow got smoothed over and 

 ignored. But there was serious trouble among the 

 geologists and biologists. However sincerely they 

 might tn,- to shut their eyes, it was impossible to be 

 wholly blind to the flict that for them the two worlds 

 were not separable. On the contrary, it was be- 

 coming plainer and plainer that a vast tract, hitherto 

 claimed for the old, was being steadily invaded and 

 annexed by the citizens of the new world. 



Fifty years ago the tension was already serious, but 

 matters had not got so far as to seem desperate. It 

 was possible for very eminent and, at the same time, 

 perfectly sincere men, to keep their scientific and 

 their other convictions in two separate logic-tight 

 compartments. Indeed, it was said that some, per- 

 haps too deeply bent on the search after final causes, 

 found a reason for the duplicity of the cerebral 

 hemispheres, in their adaptation to the purposes of 

 this duple.K intellection. Conducive to outward and 

 inward peace as might be the convention, in virtue of 

 which science was to be kept grinding at the mill of 

 utility, and (by way of completing the resemblance to 

 Samson) carefully blinded, or at any rate hoodwinked 

 lest glimpses of a nobler field of action should end in 

 an outbreak on th.- Philistines, the dilhculty of ob- 

 serving it, as uniformitarian principles obtained the 

 ascendant among the geologists, became insuperable. 

 Outside the narrow circle of the peace at-any-price 

 "reconcilers," the/a:c Baconiana was plainly coming 

 to an end in the middle of the century. It was 

 finally abolished by the publication of the " Origin 

 of Species." 



The essence of this great work may be stated 

 summarily thus : it aflSrms the mutability of species 

 and the descent of living forms, separated by differ- 

 ences of more than varietal value, from one stock. 

 That is to say, it propounds the doctrine of evolution 

 as far as biology is concerned. So far, there is nothing 

 new in Darwin's enterprise. So far, we have merely 

 a restatement of a doctrine which, in its most 

 general form, is as old as scientific speculation. So 

 far, we have the two theses which were declared to 

 be scientifically absurd and theologically damnable 

 by the Bishop of Oxford at the meeting of the British 

 Association at Oxford in i860. 



It is also of these two fundamental doctrines that, 

 at the meeting of the British Association in 1894, the 

 Chancellor of the University of Oxford spoke as 

 follows : — 



" Another lasting and unquestioned effect has re- 

 sulted from Darwin's work. He has, as a matter of 

 fact, disposed of the doctrine of ihe immutability of 

 species.' 



And 



" Few now are found to doubt that animals separated 

 by differences far exceeding those that distinguish what 

 we know as species have yet descended from common 

 ancestors." 



Undoubtedly, every one conversant with the state 

 of biological science is aware that general opinion 

 has long had good reason for making the volte face 

 thus indicated. It is also mere justice to Darwin 

 to say that this "lasting and unquestioned" revolu- 

 tion is, in a very real sense, his work. And yet it is 

 also true that, if all the conceptions promulgated in 

 the " Origin of Species '' which are peculiarly Dar- 

 winian were swept away, the theory of the evolutici 

 of animals and pl.mts would not be in the slightcbi 

 degree shaken. 



Ever since I began to think over these matters it 

 has been clear to me that the question whether the 

 forms of life on the globe have come about by evolu- 

 tion, or in some other way, is an historical problem, 

 and must be treated as such. Either there arc 

 records of the process, or there are not. If there 

 are not, we are shut up to the devising of more or 

 less probable hypotheses based on indirect evidence. 

 If there are adequate records, our business is tu 

 decipher them, and abide by what they tell us. Now. 

 in 1859, there was no doubt about the existence ui 

 records ; nor any about the fact that they extended 

 over a vast period of time ; nor any about the order 

 of succession of the facts they registered. But, there 

 was also no doubt in the mind of any one who looked 

 critically into these records, that, in spite of their 

 seeming copiousness, they were the merest fragments, 

 torn and tattered remnants of the continuous 

 series of documents which once existed. But, very 

 largely in consequence of the stimulus given by 

 Darwin,' palxontological research was taken up with 

 new vigour, and with marvellous success. So that, 

 in 1878, I felt justified in writing— 



" On the evidence of paUvontoIogy, the evolution of 

 many existing forms of animal life from their predecessors 

 is no longer an hypothesis but an historical fact."- 



And in 1880 — 



" If the doctrine of evolution had not existed, paheon- 

 tologists must have invented it, so irresistibly is it forced 

 upon the mind by the study of the remains of the Tertiary 

 Mammalia which have been brought to light smce 



I am not aware that these statements have ever 

 been controverted; and, in view of the following 

 deliverances of the author of the most authoritative 

 recent treatise on Palaeontology, I think they are not 

 likely to be : 



1 IlrilUh AssociAtion for thf Advancement of Science, Oxford, .894. 

 Address of the Most Hon. the Marqun of balisbury, Presldtnl. 

 ■i -Collccled Esiays," vol. ii. p. "6. ■• ^*"'- P- '<■• 



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