252 Darwin, and after Darwin. 
method which first set him seriously to enquire into 
the evidences of evolution as a fact; and ever since he 
published his results, the evidences which he adduced 
in favour of natural selection as a method have con- 
stituted some of the strongest reasons which scientific 
men have felt for accepting evolution as a fact. Of 
course the evidence in favour of this fact has gone on 
steadily growing, quite independently of the assistance 
which was thus so largely lent to it by the distinct- 
ively Darwinian theory of its method; and, indeed, so 
much has this been the case, that in the present treatise 
we have been able to consider such direct evidence of 
the fact itself, without any reference at all to the indirect 
or accessory evidence which is derived from that of 
natural selection as a method. From which it follows 
that in most of what I am about to say in subsequent 
chapters on the evidences of natural selection as a 
method, there will be furnished a large addition to the 
evidences which have already been detailed of evolution 
as afact. But,as a matter of systematic treatment, I 
have thought it desirable to keep these two branches of 
our subject separate. Which means that I have made 
the evidences of evolution as a fact to stand indepen- 
dently on their own feet—feet which in my opinion are 
amply strong enough to bear any weight of adverse 
criticism that can be placed upon them. 
Our position, then, is this. On the foundation of 
the previous chapters, I will henceforth assume that 
we all accept organic evolution as a fact, without 
requiring any of the accessory evidence which is gained 
by independent proof of natural selection as a method. 
But in making this assumption--namely, that we are 
all now firmly persuaded of the tact of evolution—I do 
