ADDRESS. Ixxi 
criticism. Having myself been a student of Moral Philosophy in a northern 
University, I entered on my scientific career full of hopes that metaphysics 
would prove a useful mentor, if not a guide in science, I soon, however, 
found that it availed me nothing, and I long ago arrived at the conclusion, so 
well put by Agassiz, when he says, ‘‘ we trust that the time is not distant 
when it will be universally understood that the battle of the evidences will 
have to be fought on the field of Physical Science, and not on that of Meta- 
physical” *. Many of the metaphysicians’ objections have been controverted 
by that champion of Natural Selection, Mr, Darwin’s true knight, Alfred 
Wallace, in his papers on ‘‘ Protection”? and “ Creation by Law”, &c., in 
which the doctrines of ‘‘ Continual Interference,” the “‘ Theory of Beauty,” 
and kindred subjects, are discussed with admirable sagacity, knowledge, and 
skill. But of Mr. Wallace and his many contributions to philosophical 
biology, it is not easy to speak without enthusiasm ; for, putting aside their 
great merits, he, throughout his writings, with a modesty as rare as I believe 
it to be in him unconscious, forgets his own unquestioned claims to the 
honour of having originated, independently of Mr. Darwin, the theories 
which he so ably defends. 
On the score of geology, the objectors chiefly rely on the assumed perfection 
of the geological record; and since almost all who believe in its imperfection, 
and many of the other school, accept the theories both of evolution and natural 
selection, wholly or in part, there is no doubt that Mr. Darwin claims the 
great majority of geologists. Of these, one is in himself a host, the veteran 
Sir Charles Lyell, who, after having devoted whole chapters of the first edi- 
tions of his ‘ Principles’ to establishing the doctrine of special creations, 
abandons it in the 10th edition, and this, too, on the showing of a pupil; for, 
in the dedication of his earliest work, ‘The Naturalist’s Voyage,’ to Sir C. 
Lyell, Mr. Darwin states that the chief part of whatever merit he or his works 
may possess, has been derived from studying the ‘ Principles of Geology.’ I 
know no brighter example of heroism, of its kind, than this, of an author 
thus abandoning, late in life, a theory which he had for forty years regarded 
as one of the foundation stones of a work that had given him the highest 
position attainable amongst contemporary scientific writers. Well may he be 
proud of a superstructure, raised on the foundations of an insecure doctrine, 
when he finds that he can underpin it and substitute a new foundation; and 
after all is finished, survey his edifice, not only more secure, but more har- 
monious in its proportions than it was before; for assuredly the biological 
chapters of the tenth edition of the ‘ Principles’ are more in harmony with 
the doctrine of slow changes in the history of our planet, than were their 
counterparts in the former editions. 
To the astronomers’ objections to these theories I turn with diffidence ; 
they are strenuously urged in what is in my opinion the cleverest critique of 
them that I have hitherto met with, and which appeared in the North British 
Review. It is anonymous, I am wholly ignorant of its author, and I regret 
to find that, in common with the few other really able hostile critiques, it 
is disfigured by a dogmatism that contrasts unfavourably with Mr. Darwin’s 
considerate treatment of his opponents’ methods and conclusions. The author 
starts, if I read him aright, by professing his unfamiliarity with the truth 
and extent of the facts upon which the theories of Evolution and Natural 
Selection are founded, and goes on to say, that “the superstructure based on 
* Agassiz on the Contemplation of God in the Kosmos. Christian Examiner, 4th Series, 
vol. xv. p. 2. 
t+ Westminster Review. + Journal of Science, October, 1867. 
