728 EEroRT- 1887. 



Darwinian theory did not, except in one small point, require a naturalist — and 

 inuch less naturalists of such eminence as Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace — to think 

 it out and establish its truth. Pray do not for a moment imagine that I wish to 

 detract from the value of their demonstration of a discovery that is almost unrivalled 

 in its importance when I say that the demonstration might have been perfectly well 

 made by any reflective person who was aided by that small amount of information 

 as to the condition of things around him, which is presumably possessed by eveiy- 

 body of common sense. It might have been perfectly well made by any of the 

 sages of antiquity. It might have been as well made by any reasoning man of 

 modern time, even though he were innocent of the merest rudiments of zoology or 

 botany ; and, as is admitted, the discovery was partly and almost unconsciously 

 made by Dr. Wells in 1813, and again by Mr. Patrick Matthew in 1831 — neither of 

 whom pretended to any special knowledge of those branches of science. It is 

 equally a fact that anyone who applied the doctrine of Malthus, the political 

 economist' to the animal and vegetable populations of the world, could have seen 

 that what came to be called ' Natural Selection ' was the necessary consequence of 

 the principles enunciated bj' him ; and we have Mr. Darwin's acknowledgment that 

 his reading the ' Essay ' of Malthus was with him the turning-point which settled 

 his conviction as to the soundness of the crude .speculations in which he had been 

 indulging. Moreover, years before Malthus wrote, a great French writer, though 

 no naturalist, had pointed out, in terms that were mutatis mutandis repeated as- 

 regards plants at a later time by tlie elder De Candolle, that all animals were per- 

 petually at war ; that each, with a few exceptions, was born to devour others ; and 

 that the males of the same species carried on an internecine war for the females.' 

 The fact of the ' Struggle for Life ' being thus recognised all the rest should follow, 

 and really no close acquaintance with natural history was needed to guide an in- 

 vestigator to the end so far reached. 



But in order to see the effect of this principle upon organic life the knowledge 

 — the peculiar knowledge — of the naturalist was required. This was the know- 

 ledge of those slight variations which are found in all groups of animals and 

 plants — a point on which I need not now dwell, for to my present audience it must 

 be known in thousands of instances. Herein lay the triumph of Mr. Darwin and 

 Mr. Wallace. That triumph, however, was not celebrated at Manchester. The- 

 question was of .such magnitude as to need another year's incubation, and the 

 crucial struggle came a twelvemonth later, when the Association met at Cam- 

 bridge. The victory of the new doctrine was then declared in a way that none 

 could doubt. I have no inclination to join in the pursuit of the fugitives. 



But in tracing briefly, as I am now doing, the acceptance of the teaching of 

 Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace, there is one point on which I should like to dwell 

 for a few moments, because it has, so far as I know, been very much neglected. 

 This is the great service rendered to the new theory by one who was its most 

 determined opponent, by one of whom I wish to speak with the utmost respect, by 

 one who was tboroughly a philosophical naturalist, and yet pushed his philosophy 

 to overstep the verge of — I fear I must say— absurdity. I mean the late Professor 

 Louis Agassiz, whose labours in so many ways deserve far higher praise than it is 

 in my power to bestow. There must be many here present who will recollect the 

 time when the question ' AVhat is a " Species "? ' was always coming up to plague 

 the mind of every zoologist and botanist. That question never received a definite 

 answer, and yet every zoologist and botanist of those days felt that an answer 

 ought to be given to it ; for without one they knew that they were .sailing on aB 

 unknown sea, and that theirs was likely to be lost labour. The chief rea.?on why no 

 answer was given lay in the fact that hardly any two zoologists or botanists could 

 agree as to the kind of reply which should be made, for hardly any two of thena 



' Tons les animaux sont perpttuellement en guerre ; chaque esipece est nee pour 

 en devorer une autre. II n'j' a pas jusqn'aux moutons et aux colombes qui n'avalent 

 une quantite prodigieuse d'animaux imperceistibles. Les males de la meme espece 

 se font la guerre pour les femelles, comme Menelas et Paris. L'air, la terre et les 

 eaux sont des champs de destruction.— Voltaire, Questions sur I'lJnci/clojH'die j)ar des 

 Amatevrs, article ' Guerre.' 



