et Imbecillitate Darwiniana. 5 1 



was, a real stepping-stone, a book marking a 

 great stride in the education of the world. It 

 was the Vestiges, and not the Origin of Spe- 

 cies, that broke the spell and awoke the world 

 from its long sleep. The clear and definite 

 statement of development, minus ' Natural 

 Selection,' is what we owe to Robert Cham- 

 bers, who standing by and looking on, was the 

 first to see, what none of the men of science 

 of his day could see. They fell upon him, 

 tooth and nail : and now they are all preach- 

 ing his doctrine, and crediting its discovery 

 to one of themselves ; exactly as the politi- 

 cians who abused Disraeli in his lifetime are 

 now making great fame by leaves taken from 

 his book. But though it may be news to 

 many, it is the historical fact, that it was 

 not ' science,' but philosophy, the scientific 

 outsider, that discovered evolution and pro- 

 claimed it in England : and so far from 

 initiating it, ' science ' opposed it, when it 



