22 THE DARWINIAN THEORY 



to depart indefinitely from the Original Type," this 

 being the same conclusion at which Darwin himself 

 had arrived. Darwin wished to publish Wallace's 

 paper at once, but on the urgent persuasion of Sir 

 Joseph Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell he consented 

 that extracts from one of his earlier MS. prepared 

 in 1 844, and from a letter to Professor Asa Gray 

 in 1857, should be read at the same time. This 

 took place at the Linnsan Society on July 1, 1858. 

 Each man's discovery was perfectly independent, 

 and neither knew on what lines the other was 

 working. Full mutual recognition ensued, and most 

 cordial intercourse and esteem. 



Summary. — We have now traced the gradually 

 increasing tendency towards a belief in Evolution. 

 This was suggested in a tentative and almost 

 cynical way by Buffon, and warmly supported by 

 Goethe, and during the first half of the present 

 century by Lamarck, St. Hilaire, Herbert Spencer, 

 and others. Owing to one fatal flaw this belief 

 failed to command anything like general acceptance. 

 We know from fossils that the former dwellers on 

 earth were unlike those now living, and that the 

 doctrine of Evolution therefore involves modification. 

 No one was able to point to the causes which could 

 lead to such modification, or to explain how it could 

 have come about. This was the objection which 

 was driven home with relentless force and per- 

 sistency by Cuvier, supported by all the weight of 

 his personal authority, and the influence rightly 

 gained by his splendid contributions to the science 

 of Comparative Anatomy. This is the objection 



