PREFACE. xlvii 



such splendid results, as those which have 

 been brought to light in the 19th century, 

 of which we are receiving the benefit in the 

 present day; it is equally true, as it has 

 been forcibly remarked by a critic of Pro- 

 fessor HaeckeFs doctrines, that " Never 

 before have scientific men talked such un- 

 scientific nonsense, or promulgated such 

 baseless fallacies. It is the age of great 

 discoveries ; but also the age of hasty ge- 

 neralisation, rash assertions, unwarranted 

 assumptions, and specious sophisms on the 

 part of the discoverers." 



We think this may be seen in some of 

 the most recent utterances on the subject 

 of Evolution. Professor Huxley is re- 

 ported to have said in a lecture, On the 

 Origin of Man, delivered at the Royal 

 Institution, April 9th, 1880, that " The 

 doctrine of Evolution was no longer a 

 matter of speculation, but an absolute fact " 

 Or as Professor Fowler is said to have 

 expressed it, at the Reading Church Con- 

 gress of 1883, that " Evolution was a 

 certainty, that man was evolved like other 



