Jiilyi^, 1872] 



NATURE 



239 



tion. But it is the mere wide general assertions which 

 Dr. Bree quotes with greatest approval as destructive of 

 Darwinism. Thus : " There is no evidence in nature of 

 birds with imperfect wings ; no proof of a succession of 

 blunders before perfection was attained. All is perfect, 

 and all was always perfect." And again : " In every 

 arrangement of bones, muscles, joints, and parts of 

 animals, the motion mint be such as it would be on the 

 hypothesis that the muscles were a living, intelligent 

 thing, trying to save itself trouble." This last may be 

 true, but it is certainly not necessarily true ; and as to 

 imperfect wings, what are those of the Cassowary and 

 Apteryx, which have no known function whatever .'' 



The article of IM. Flourens against Darwin is given in 

 an appendix, and his facts as to the crossing of quadru- 

 peds are said to be absolutely fatal to the whole theory of 

 natural selection. But these facts are of a very imperfect 

 and scanty character, and are almost wholly negative ; 

 and they are fully noticed in Mr. Darwin's elaborate dis- 

 cussion of the difficult question of hybridity, although Dr. 

 Bree assures his readers that these facts were " never 

 contradicted or even noticed by Mr. Darwin J " Under 

 the heading " Flourens," in the index to " Animals and 

 Plants under! Domestication," are four references, and the 

 works, " Longcvitc' Humaine "and " De l'lnstinct,"are re- 

 ferred to ; while Dr. Bree himself seems to be unaware 

 of the existence of anything but the " Criticism on Dar- 

 win," which has been long ago most admirably answered 

 by Prof. Huxley. 



We will now give a few examples of the facts and argu- 

 ments adduced by Dr. Bree himself. At p. 90, he tells us 

 that Mr. Darwin " has given figures of different sized 

 skulls and jaw-bones, scapukc and clavicles (of pigeons), 

 differing just as much from each other as the same bones 

 in different sized Englishmen would do ; and nothing 

 more ! " And on the next page he assures us that a Col- 

 chester pigeon-fancier told him, that if he allowed his 

 short-beaked tumblers to fly out of doors they would 

 revert to a state of nature, and that, in a few weeks, the 

 beautiful small beaks would be as long and as coarse as 

 those of any other bird ! On which Dr. Bree triumphantly 

 remarks — " Of course they would." At p. 131 he tells us, 

 that although young song birds will learn other birds' 

 notes with which they may be associated, yet if kept 

 quite alone they will sing their own natural song, " as se- 

 veral v>ho have tried t/ie experiment assure me." This is 

 directly opposed to the experiments on this very point of 

 Daines Barrington, quoted by me in " Contributions to 

 the Theory of Natural Selection," 2nd Ed. p. 221, and it 

 would therefore have been a valuable contribution to our 

 knowledge of this difficult subject if the experiments al- 

 luded to had been given in detail, not vaguely referred to. 

 At p. 143 it is stated that the bees' cell "is one of the finest 

 examples in nature of what is termed the principle of 

 ' least action ; ' that is to say, the greatest amount of 

 space is gained by the least amount of material." This is 

 certainly not true, for the cell being suspended from the 

 top and equally thick throughout, must be too strong at 

 bottom if strong enough at top. There is therefore waste 

 of material. This objection was published nine years 

 ago, in the "Aimals of Natural History" for October 

 1863, and it has never been answered. 



On the imperfection of the geological record Dr. Bree 



is very strong. He says that Mr. Darwin "asks us to 

 imagine that an ape-like man became evolved in the 

 lower tertiaries, the remains of which or of his descend- 

 ants have never been discovered. Such a demand upon 

 the credulity of mankind was never, I believe, before 

 seriously made, unless we were told that geese were trans- 

 muted barnacles " (p. I So). This is, of course, a suffi- 

 cient answer to Sir Charles Lyell's careful investigation 

 of the subject, and especially to his most suggestive table 

 of old fossil mammals, given in the twentieth chapter of 

 his " Elements of Geology." 



Mr. Mivart and Prof. Owen are both applauded so far 

 as they oppose Darwin, but as both of them beheve in 

 some form of development, they are, in Dr. Bree's opinion, 

 almost equally involved in error. Mr. Mivart's doctrine 

 of evolution, he thinks, cannot stand, and " looks too 

 much like Mr. Tegetmeii-'s pigeons, made to order." It is, 

 however, no doubt offered with the best intentions, " as a 

 means of reconciling scientific and religious thought," — 

 " two lines which, Mr. Spencer remarks, are running pa- 

 rallel and gradually approaching each other ! " (We doubt 

 the accuracy of this ciuotation from Mr. Spencer, but we 

 are near the end of the book and have learnt not to 

 expect accuracy.) Prof. Owen has, in Dr. Bree's humble 

 opinion, " surrendered the outposts of our defence to the 

 believers in the Darwinian hypothesis." As to Sir Charles 

 Lyell, the charm of his works is gone for Dr. Bree, and 

 he reflects with melancholy what the future will think of 

 the great geologist's transmutation of thought, and with 

 regret that such a man could, " in the maturity of his age 

 and fame, 'have forsaken the ' principles ' of his youth, of 

 his manhood, and of his prime." The researches of M. 

 Gaudry in Greece are of no use whatever ; for the various 

 forms of elephant, rhinoceros, horse, and pig, which 

 he and Sir Charles Lyell believe to be intermediate 

 forms, differ no more from one another than do 

 English from Americans, and only prove a " slight 

 variation ! " 



These are the kind of observations, this the kind of 

 reasoning, by which Dr. Bree thinks to stem the tide of 

 belief in Darwinism. At p. 269, Prof. Huxley is se- 

 verely criticised for having written the following passage : 

 "The mixture of ignorance and insolence which at Jirst 

 characterised a large proportion of the attacks with which 

 Mr. Darwin was assailed, is no longer the sad distinction 

 of anti-Darwinian criticism." This, Dr. Bree, with his 

 usual curious logic, asserts is manifestly untrue, because 

 some of the highest men in science, such as Agassiz, 

 Flourens, Owen, Haughton, &c., oppose Darwinism. 

 Why then did Dr. Bree not let well alone — leave the 

 battle in the hands of these redoubted champions, and 

 not give Prof. Huxley the opportunity of retracting his 

 statement, on the ground that although the insolence of 

 the first opponents of Darwinism may have vanished, 

 their ignorance has retiu-ned .' 



In conclusion, I must again repeat that the only reason 

 for devoting so much space to a book so little worthy of 

 its title or its author, is the wish to warn such as are not 

 well acquainted with Mr. Darwin's works from implicitly 

 relying either on Dr. Bree's facts and arguments, or on 

 the accuracy of his representation of those of Mr. Darwin 

 and his supporters. 



Alfred R. Wallace 



