XIL] "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 311 



love with him at first sight, I think it is to the credit 

 of our age that the war was not fiercer, and that the 

 more bitter and unscrupulous forms of opposition died 

 away as soon as they did. 



I speak of this period as of something past and 

 gone, possessing merely an historical, I had almost 

 said an antiquarian interest. For, during the second 

 decade of the existence of the " Origin of Species," 

 opposition, though by no means dead, assumed a 

 different aspect. On the part of all those who had 

 any reason to respect themselves, it assumed a thor- 

 oughly respectful character. By this time, the dullest 

 began to perceive that the child was not likely to 

 perish of any congenital weakness or infantile dis- 

 order, but was growing into a stalwart personage, 

 upon whom mere goody scoldings and threatenings 

 with the birch-rod were quite thrown away. 



In fact, those who have watched the progress of 

 science within the last ten years will bear me out to 

 the full, when I assert that there is no field of bio- 

 logical inquiry in which the influence of the " Origin 

 of Species" is not traceable; the foremost men of 

 science in every country are either avowed champions 

 of its leading doctrines, or at any rate abstain from 

 opposing them ; a host of young and ardent investi- 

 gators seek for and find inspiration and guidance in 

 Mr. Darwin's great work ; and the general doctrine 

 of evolution, to one side of which it gives expression, 

 obtains, in the phenomena of biology, a firm base of 

 operations whence it may conduct its conquest of the 

 whole realm of nature. 



