CHAPTER II. 



REVIEW OF THE POSITION 



The modern story of the theory of organic evolution shows certain 

 important dates— 1859, 1880, 1894, 1895, 1899 and 1909. These 

 begin with the Origin of Species and end with the publication of a 

 volume in commemoration of its jubilee, when most of the leading 

 students of evolution united to render homage to Darwin. The 

 year 1859 has been so often and so worthily treated that it is enough 

 here to say that the fifty years between the issue of the work of 

 Darwin and Wallace and 1909 saw a greater revolution in biology, 

 speculative and practical, than any period so relatively brief had 

 ever seen. 



In the year 1880 the " coming of age " of the Origin of Species 

 was celebrated. On the 9th of April at the Royal Institution an 

 address was given by the powerful friend, champion and candid 

 critic of Darwin, and before the scientific and educated world 

 Huxley was able to say with his own force and directness : " Evolu- 

 tion is no longer an hypothesis, but an historical fact." It may 

 be noted in passing that Darwin's theory of natural selection is not 

 referred to in the address. Challenges and opposition from various 

 quarters met this confident claim of the formidable speaker, as 

 doubtless he desired, but the work of the succeeding half -century 

 has done little or nothing that does not establish that claim. It 

 is hardly to be doubted that if in the jubilee-year, 1909, Huxley had 

 been alive on this earth, instead of elsewhere, his eloquent voice 

 would have been heard to declare with emphasis equal to that 

 of 1880 : " Selection is no longer an hypothesis, but an historical 

 fact." Some such statement, with the imprimatur of a great name 

 would have removed from the jubilee- volume that slight aspect 

 as of a Dutch chorus 1 which is apparent in it. A remark of Kelvin's 



1 The above remark as to the jubilee -volume needs to be explained and 

 justified. In it there is an important essay on each of the great provinces of 

 Weismann, Mendel and de Vries, and in each of these the highest living exponent 

 speaks, Professors Weismann, Bateson and de Vries. Bateson expresses 

 admiration for Weismann's destructive work, but shows plainly that he holds 

 it to have failed in its fundamental purpose. Nevertheless, by a neat tour 

 d'addresse he adopts Weismann's uncompromising attitude on the inheritance 

 of acquired characters, which happens to agree exceedingly well with his own 



