FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 53 



brought before the world far more prominently 

 than they have ever been either before or since. 

 Furthermore, the only naturahst who can be de- 

 scribed as a pupil of Darwin's was strongly ad- 

 vised by him to repeat some of Gartner's experi- 

 ments.^ It is simply erroneous to explain the 

 neglect of such researches as a consequence of 

 the_jjgpeaxance-of--4he-On^frand~the~ study of 

 adaptatioiij^^o far from acting as a " numbing 

 speir"TJipon any other inquiry, adaptation itself 

 has been nearly as much neglected as hybridism, 

 and for the same reason — the dominant influence 

 upon biological teaching of the illustrious com- 

 parative anatomist Huxley, Darwin's great gen- 

 eral in the battles that had to be fought, but not 

 a naturalist, far less a student of hving nature. 



The momentous influence of the Origin upon 

 the past half century, as well as that strange lack 

 of the historic sense which alone could render pos- 

 sible the comparisons I have quoted, require for 

 their appreciation the addition of yet another 

 metaphor to the series we have been so freely 

 offered. 



The effect of the Origin upon the boundless 

 domain of biological thought was as though the 

 sun had at length dispelled the mists that had 

 long enshrouded a vast primeval continent. It 

 might then perhaps be natural for some primitive 



> Darwin's letter of December 11, 1862, to John Scott, contains 

 the following words: "If you have the means to repeat Gartner's 

 experiments on variations of Verbascum or on maize (see the 

 Origin), such experiments would be preeminently important." 



