PREFACE. Vll 



classes Thackeray as the best of that style 

 of writers, and Disraeli as the worst), puts 

 into the mouth of one of his ideal 

 characters a blue-stocking lady the fol- 

 lowing Darwinian dictum "We were 

 fishes, we shall be crows ; we had fins, we 

 may have wings." 



This, however, has been plainly contra- 

 dicted by one of the most eminent savans 

 of modern times, the very learned Agassiz, 

 an honour and an ornament to the land 

 both of his birth and adoption, who 

 declares that the Transmutation theory 

 of one species to another is " wholly 

 without foundation in fact." And so in 

 his Travels in Brazil, when speaking of the 

 Evolution hypothesis, he very plainly 

 declares that "The theory is a -scientific 

 blunder ; untrue in its facts, unscientific in 

 its method, and ruinous in its tendency." 



Who shall decide when doctors dif- 

 fer so much, as we have already seen by 

 a reference to the opinions expressed by 

 certain notabilities of various ages, from 

 Job to Agassiz, embracing the tolerably 



