The Theory of Natural Selection. 257 
idea that has ever been conceived by the mind of man. 
Yet the wonder is that it should not have been 
hit upon long before. Or rather, I should say, the 
wonder is that its immense and immeasurable impor- 
tance should not have been previously recognised. 
For, since the publication of this idea by Darwin and 
Wallace, it has been found that its main features had 
already occurred to at least two other minds—namely, 
Dr. Wells in 1813, and Mr. Patrick Matthew in 1831. 
But neither of these writers perceived that in the few 
scattered sentences which they had written upon the 
subject they had struck the key-note of organic nature, 
and resolved one of the principal chords of the universe. 
Still more remarkable is the fact that Mr. Herbert 
Spencer—notwithstanding his great powers of abstract 
thought and his great devotion of those powers to the 
theory of evolution, when as yet this theory was scorned 
by science—still more remarkable, I say, is the fact that 
Mr. Herbert Spencer should have missed what now 
appears so obvious an idea. But most remarkable of 
all is the fact that Dr. Whewell, with all his stores of 
information on the history of the inductive sciences, 
and with all his acumen on the matter of scientific 
method, should not only have conceived the idea of 
natural selection, but expressly stated it as a logically 
possible explanation of the origin of species, and yet 
have so stated it merely for the purpose of dismissing 
it with contempt?. This, I think, is most remarkable, 
because it serves to prove how very far men’s minds at 
that time must have been from entertaining, as in any 
way antecedently probable, the doctrine of trans- 
mutation. In order to show this I will here quote one 
1 For quotations, see Note A. 
* Ss 
