52 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



ence upon the interesting and important study 

 of species and varieties by means of hybridism. 

 As regards these researches its appearance, we 

 are told, " was the signal for a general halt " ; ^ 

 upon them Natural Selection " descended like a 

 numbing spell " ; ^ and if we are still unsatisfied 

 with his fertihty in metaphor the author offers a 

 further choice between the forty years in the wil- 

 derness,' and the leading into captivity.* 



Francis Galton, in his address as a recipient 

 of the Darwin- Wallace medal on July 1st last, 

 recalled the effect of the Linnean Society Essay 

 and the Origin. The dominant feeling, he said, 

 was one of freedom. This liberty was offered to 

 the student of hybridism as freely as to any other. 

 No longer brought up against the blank wall of 

 special creation, he could fearlessly follow his re- 

 searches into all their bearings upon the evolution 

 of species. And this had been clearly foreseen 

 by Darwin when, in 1837, he opened his first 

 note-book and set forth the grand program which 

 the acceptance of evolution would unfold. He 

 there said of his theory that " it would lead to 

 study of . . . heredity," that " it would lead 

 to closest examination of hybridity and genera- 

 tion." In the Origin itself the admirable re- 

 searches of Kolreuter and Gartner on these very 

 subjects received the utmost attention and were 



'Report British Association., 1904, p. 575. 



»i. c, p. 576. 



'Menders Principles of Heredity, W. Bateson, 1902, p. 104. 



• L. c, p. 208. 



