258 Darwin, and after Darwin. 
passage from the writings of Whewell, and another 
from a distinguished French naturalist referred to by 
him. 
In 1846 Whewell wrote :— 
Not only is the doctrine of the transmutation of species in 
itself disproved by the best physiological reasonings, but the 
additional assumptions which are requisite to enable its ad- 
vocates to apply it to the explanation of the geological and 
other phenomena of the earth, are altogether gratuitous and 
fantastical '. 
Then he quotes with approval the following 
opinion :— 
Against this hypothesis, which, up to the present time, I regard 
as purely gratuitous, and likely to turn geologists out of the 
sound and excellent road in which they now are, I willingly raise 
my voice, with the most absolute conviction of being in the 
right *. 
And, after displaying the proof rendered by Lyell 
of uniformitarianism in geology, and cordially sub- 
scribing thereto, Whewell adds :— 
We are lcd by our reasonings to this view, that the present 
order of things was commenced by an act of creative power 
entirely different to any agency which has been exerted since. 
None of the influences which have modified the present races of 
animals and plants since they were placed in their habitations on 
the carth’s surface can have had any efficacy in producing them 
at first. We are necessarily driven to assume, as the beginning 
of the present cycle of organic nature, an event not included in 
“the course of nature *. 
So much, then, for the state of the most enlightened 
and representative opinions on the question of evolution 
1 Whewell, Zndications of the Creator, and ed., 1846. 
2 De Blainville, Compte Rendu, 1837. 
5 Whewell, zdzd., p. 162. 
