PREFACE xiii 



solid foundation upon which evolution rests. I have 

 wished to express this conviction because my name 

 has been used as part of the support for an opposite 

 opinion, by an anonymous writer in the ' Edinburgh 

 Eeview.' 1 In an article in which unfairness is as 

 conspicuous as the prejudice to which it is due, I am 

 classed as one of those ' industrious young observers ' 

 who ' are accumulating facts telling with more or less 

 force against pure Darwinism.' 2 On the strength of 

 this and other almost equally strange evidence, the 

 Eeviewer triumphantly exclaims, ' Darwin, the thanes 

 fly from thee ! ' In view of this public mention of my 

 name, I may perhaps be excused for making the per- 

 sonal statement that any scientific work which I have 

 had the opportunity of doing has been inspired by 

 one firm purpose the desire to support, in however 

 small a degree, and to illustrate by new examples, 

 those great principles which we owe to the life and 

 writings of Charles Darwin, and especially the pre- 

 eminent principle of Natural Selection. 



E. B. P. 

 OXFORD : Dec. 28, 1889. 



1 Edinburgh Review. Article V. April 1888, pp. 407-47. 



* p. 443. The bias of the writer appears in a most singular 

 manner upon this page. In the short space of seventeen lines the 

 following adjectives are divided between five writers and their works 

 industrious, illustrious, gifted, well-read, acute, intelligent, brilliant, 

 thoughtful. I need hardly say that all five writers are believed by 

 the Reviewer to oppose the theory of Natural Selection. 



