TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 727 



First of July, 1858, that tbe stupendous announcement was made of a llioory 

 which for the first time brought to the notice of biologists a reasonable explana- 

 tion of the mode by which what had hitherto passed under the name of the 

 Transmutation of Species could be efi'ected. It is notorious that this announce- 

 ment attracted but little attention at first, and, though it were easy to account 

 for this fact, I see no need to occupy your time by so doing. I would, how- 

 ever, beg your attention to another fact which is by no means notorious. So far 

 as I am aware, the first zoologist publicly to accept and embrace the theory pro- 

 pounded on that memorable evening on behalf of jMr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace 

 was my old friend Canon Tristram, and moreover he did this ere little more than 

 a twelvemonth had expired.' To me it will always be a matter of rejoicing that 

 the adoption of this theory was so early accepted, and additional evidence in its 

 favour adduced, by one who has devoted so much time and energy to the parti- 

 cular branch of zoology which has long recommended itself to me ; for thereby I 

 hope that the study of ornithology may be said to have been lifted above its fellows. 

 This, however, is a digression, for introducing which I trust I may be pardoned. 

 And now to return to my main business. Late in the autumn of 1859, as you 

 know, i\Ir. Darwin's essay on the ' Origin of Species ' appeared — a mere abstract, 

 as it still remains, of an enormous mass of materials industriously accumidated by 

 him through many long years — a mass out of which, as he himself has modestly 

 said, a competent man might have written ' a splendid book ' — but a mass with 

 which he, chiefly through ill-health, had been unable to deal properly. Yet I am 

 not sure that we have any reason to lament the result. The handy size of that 

 celebrated little volume gave it a power of penetration and circulation that would 

 not have been possessed by a work of greater bulk, while the studied absence of 

 technicalities and of reference to scientific authorities in the form of foot-notes 

 (which last, I need scarcely point out, would have largely increased its dimensions) 

 brought its closely-reasoned argument within the comprehension of hundreds whom 

 it would have at once repelled had it been made up of learned phraseology. 



Much of what followed on the publication of this work will be in the recollection 

 of many of my audience, while the rest must have heard of it from their seniors. 

 The ever-memorable meeting of this Association at Oxford in the summer of 1860 

 saw the first open conflict between the professors of the new faith and the adherents 

 of the old one. Far be it from me to blame those among the latter who honestly 

 stuck to the creed in which they had educated themselves ; but my admiration is 

 for the few dauntless men who, without flinching from the unpopularity of their 

 cause, flung themselves in the way of obloquy, and impetuously assaulted the ancient 

 citadel in which the sanctity of ' Species ' was enshrined and worshipped as a pal- 

 ladium. However strongly I myself sympathised with them, I cannot fairly state 

 that the conflict on this occasion was otherwise than a drawn battle ; and thus 

 matters stood when in the following year the Association met in this city. That, as I 

 have already said, was a time of ' slack water.' But though the ancient beliefs were 

 not much troubled, it was for the last time that they could be said to prevail ; and 

 thus I look upon our meeting in Manchester in 1861 as a crisis in the history of 

 biology. All the same, the ancient beliefs were not allowed to pass wholly unchal- 

 lenged; and one thing is especially to be marked — they were challenged by one who 

 was no naturalist at all, by one who was a severe thinker no le.ss than an active 

 worker ; one who was generally right in his logic, and never wrong in his instinct ; 

 one wlio, though a politician, was invariably an honest man — I mean the late Pro- 

 fessor Fawcett. On this occasion he brought the clearness of his mental vision to 

 bear upon Mr. Darwin's theory, with the result that Mr. Darwin's method of in- 

 vestigation was shown to be strictly in accordance with the rules of deductive 

 philosophy, and to throw light where all was dark before. 



Now the reason why I have especially mentioned this essay of Professor 

 Fawcett's is not merely that the approval of the disputed' theory by such a man did 

 iiot a little contribute to the success which was then impending, but because I have 

 for a long while maintained that, as a matter of fact, Ivhat is now known as the 



' Ibis, October 1859, pp. 429-433. 



