X HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



life are gradual. He argues with much force on general 

 grounds that species are not immutable productions. But 

 I cannot see how the two supposed "impulses" account in a 

 scientific sense for the numerous and beautiful coadaptations 

 which we see throughout nature; I cannot see that we 

 thus gain any insight how, for instance, a woodpecker has 

 become adapted to its peculiar habits of life. The work, 

 from its powerful and brilliant style, though displaying in 

 the early editions little accurate knowledge and a great 

 want of scientific caution, immediately had a very wide 

 circulation. In my opinion it has done excellent service 

 in this country in calling attention to the subject, in re- 

 moving prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for 

 the reception of analogous views. 



In 1846 the veteran geologist M. J. d'Omalius d'Halloy 

 published in an excellent though short paper ("Bulletins 

 de I'Acad. Eoy. Bruxelles," tom. xiii, p. 581) his opinion 

 that it is more probable that new species have been pro- 

 duced by descent with modification than that they have 

 been separately created: the author first promulgated this 

 opinion in 1831. 



Professor Owen, in 1819 ("Nature of Limbs," j). 86), 

 wrote as follows: " The archetypal idea was manifested 

 in the flesh under diverse such modifications, upon this 

 planet, long prior to the existence of those animal species 

 that actually exemplify it. To what natural laws or secon- 

 dary causes the orderly succession and progression of such 

 organic phenomena may have been committed, we, as yet, 

 are ignorant." In his address to the British Association, 

 in 1858, he speaks (p. li) of "the axiom of the continuous 

 operation of creative power, or of the ordained becoming 

 of living things." Further on (p. xc), after referring to 

 geographical distribution, he adds, "These phenomena 

 shake our confidence in the conclusion that the Apteryx of 

 Kew Zealand and the Red Grouse of England were distinct 

 creations in and for those islands respectively. Always, 

 also, it may be well to bear in mind that by the word 

 'creation" the zoologist means 'a process he knows not 

 what.' " He amplifies this idea by adding that when such 

 cases as that of the Eed Grouse are " enumerated by the 

 zoologist as evidence of distinct creation of the bird in and 

 for such islands, he chiefly expresses that he knows not 



