XXXIV REPORT—-1874., 
through the vigorous exposition of his views by the author of the ‘ Vestiges 
of Creation,’ endeavoured to show the development of species out of changes 
of habit and external condition. In 1813 Dr. Wells, the founder of our 
present theory of Dew, read before the Royal Society a paper in which, to 
use the words of Mr. Darwin, “he distinctly recognizes the principle of 
natural selection ; and this is the first recognition that has been indicated.” 
The thoroughness and skill with which Wells pursued his work, and the 
obvious independence of his character, rendered him long ago a favourite 
with me; and it gave me the liveliest pleasure to alight upon this additional 
testimony to his penetration. Professor Grant, Mr. Patrick Matthew, Von 
Buch, the author of the ‘ Vestiges,’ D’Halloy, and others*, by the enunciation 
of opinions more or less clear and correct, showed that the question had been 
fermenting long prior to the year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace 
simultaneously but independently placed their closely concurrent views upon 
the subject before the Linnean Society. 
These papers were followed in 1859 by the publication of the first edition 
of ‘ The Origin of Species.’ All great things come slowly to the birth. Coper- 
nicus, as I informed you, pondered his great work for thirty-three years. New- 
ton for nearly twenty years kept the idea of Gravitation before his mind ; for 
twenty years also he dwelt upon his discovery of Fluxions, and doubtless would 
have continued to makeit the object of his private thought had he not found that 
Leibnitz was upon his track. Darwin for two and twenty years pondered the 
problem of the origin of species, and doubtless he would have continued to do so 
had he not found Wallace upon his track t. A concentrated, but full and power- 
ful epitome of his labours was the consequence. The book was by no means an 
easy one ; and probably not one in every score of those who then attacked it had 
read its pages through, or were competent to grasp their significance if they 
had. I do not say this merely to discredit them; for there were in those 
days some really eminent scientific men, entirely raised above the heat of 
popular prejudice, willing to accept any conclusion that science had to offer, 
provided it was duly backed by fact and argument, and who entirely mistook 
Mr. Darwin’s views. In fact the work needed an expounder; and it 
found one in Mr. Huxley. I know nothing more admirable in the way of 
scientific exposition than those early articles of his on the origin of species. 
He swept the curve of discussion through the really significant points of the 
subject, enriched his exposition with profound original remarks and 
reflections, often summing up in a single pithy sentence an argument which 
a less compact mind would have spread over pages. But there is one 
impression made by the book itself which no exposition of it, however 
luminous, can convey; and that is the impression of the vast amount of 
labour, both of observation and of thought, implied in its production. Let 
us glance at its principles. 
It is conceded on all hands that what are called varieties are continually 
produced. The rule is probably without exception. No chick and no child 
is in all respects and particulars the counterpart of its brother and sister ; 
and in such differences we have “ variety ” incipient. No naturalist could tell 
how far this variation could be carried; but the great mass of them held that 
never by any amount of internal or external change, nor by the mixture of both, 
* In 1855 Mr. Herbert Spencer (‘Principles of Psychology,’ 2nd edit. vol. i. p. 465) 
expressed ‘the belief that life under all its forms has arisen by an unbroken evolution, 
and through the instrumentality of what are called natural causes.” 
_t The behaviour of Mr. Wallace in relation to this subject has been dignified in the 
highest degree, ae 
