EVOLUTION 5 



we now possess in a permanent form. The first draft was 

 copied and enlarged in 1844, and the larger and more 

 comprehensive work was commenced twelve years later, 

 viz. in 1856. The first public declaration of his views was 

 made — as he thought prematurely — in 1858, owing to the 

 independent discovery of the principle of Natural Selection 

 by Alfred Russel Wallace. The history of this splendid 

 example of scientific magnanimity is well known, but 

 cannot be too often referred to as a pattern of chivalry 

 and of intellectual greatness for the guidance and en- 

 couragement of the younger generations. The first edition 

 of the Origin of Species was published on November 24, 



1859. 



During the Darwinian celebration here last year it 

 was claimed that through Lyell, who was a pupil of 

 Buckland's, Oxford had some influence in moulding the 

 career of Charles Darwin, whose indebtedness to the 

 illustrious pioneer of modern Geology is notorious. Such 

 influence as Buckland had in forming Lyell's geological 

 views was, however, of a negative rather than of a positive 

 character, for the pupil's reputation was ultimately made 

 by overthrowing the teaching of his master. In a similarly 

 indirect way, and also through Lyell, Oxford may be said 

 to have influenced Herbert Spencer, since he first read 

 the Principles of Geology in 1840, when twenty years old, 

 and the arguments advanced in the early editions of that 

 work against Lamarck's theory of animal development 

 led him, as he has told us in his Autobiography, to ' a partial 

 acceptance of Lamarck's views '.^ In a more direct way 

 may Oxford claim also to have influenced Spencer, since 

 Dean Mansel, the author of those well-known Bampton 

 Lectures so freely quoted in the First Principles, was 

 a distinguished member of this University. Whether 

 Spencer's early acceptance of Lamarckism is responsible 

 for his later tenacity in combating the views of that 

 school of biologists founded by Weismann is a point 

 which might serve for academic discussion, but whatever 



• See also the ' Filiation of Ideas ' in Duncan's Life and Letters, p. 536. 



