CHAPTER Y. 



DAKWIN AND HTS CKITICS. 



" Flower in the crannied wall, 



if I could understand 



What you are, root and all, and all in all, 

 I should know what God and man is." 



TENNYSON. 



" By properly understanding one atom with all its constituents, the 

 mind would be comprehending a globe." A. J. DAVIS. Principles of 

 Nature, p. 154. 



DURING the course of the present century, 

 various authors have written with more or less 

 ability in favour of the Origin of Species by 

 gradual Evolution, but the theory gained little 

 support either from naturalists or from the 

 general public, until the simultaneous promul- 

 gation of the Theory of Natural Selection, by 

 Darwin and Wallace, inaugurated what may well 

 be termed a new era in philosophical natural 

 history. 



A very compact view of this theory has been 

 given by Wallace,* and also by Mivart,f and it 



* i( Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," p. 302. 

 t " Genesis of Species," p. 5. 



