52 INTRODUCTION. 
A pre-recognition of the Darwinian theory has been claimed 
for Mr. Patrick Matthew, whose volume on ‘Naval Timber and 
Arboriculture,’ dated in 1831, bears much internal evidence of 
mental vigour and independent thought. A theory of species was 
only incidental to the leading object of that book; and hence 
perhaps in part the vagueness and brevity of its Author’s remarks 
on species-conservation and species-transition ; both of which were 
recognized and alluded to, as fact and probable fact. But the 
ambiguously worded and half-conjectural remarks by Mr. Matthew, 
though certainly an advance beyond ideas currently prevailing at 
the date of his work, cannot thus late be fairly adduced as an 
exposition of the Darwinian theory of “ natural selection,” or even 
as a real pre-recognition of it. They read, indeed, like a near 
guess at it, if now interpreted under the light so clearly thrown 
upon the matter by Mr. Darwin’s own publications. But, it may 
fairly be asked, whether Mr. Matthew himself, or any of his 
readers, ever afterwards united the disjointed and incidental 
remarks into a connected theory of nature, or theory of species ? — 
into anything which would have required or justified a volume 
under the Darwinian title of “ Origin of Species by means of 
Natural Selection”? His views, on the whole, seem to have been 
more Lamarckian than Darwinian. 
The reaction against a first sceptism has been great and rapid 
in favour of the Darwinian doctrines. The danger now is, that 
Mr. Darwin will be supposed to have discovered and established 
much more than he truly has done. Along with what is clear and 
presumable in his theory as a whole, there still remain points of 
primary importance left unexplained, and things assumed as 
probable or certain on the slenderest possible evidence, not to say, 
positively against the bearing of such evidence as can be adduced. 
How far will this go towards accounting for the utter neglect of 
Darwinism in the only Journal of Botany maintained in England? 
It can hardly be that none of the writers in that Journal are 
of intellectual calibre and training sufficient to treat the subject ; 
one which bears so closely, not only on questions about species 
