176 Luck, or Cunning? 
with the conception of slow natural development, as 
opposed to immediate and miraculous creation. 
“The influence of these novel conceptions upon the 
growth and spread of evolutionary ideas was far-reaching 
and twofold. In the first place, the discovery of a definite 
succession of nearly related organic forms following one 
another with evident closeness through the various ages, 
inevitably suggested to every inquiring observer the possi- 
bility of their direct descent one from the other. In the 
second place, the discovery that geological formations were 
not really separated each from its predecessor by violent 
revolutions, but were the result of gradual and ordinary 
changes, discredited the old idea of frequent fresh creations 
after each catastrophe, and familiarised the minds of men 
of science with the alternative notion of slow and natural 
evolutionary processes. The past was seen in effect to be 
the parent of the present; the present was recognised as 
the child of the past.” 
This is certainly not Mr. Darwin’s own account of the 
matter. Probably the truth will lie somewhere between 
the two extreme views : and on the one hand, the world of 
thought was not seething quite so badly as Mr. Allen repre- 
sents it, while on the other, though “ three classes of fact,” 
&c., were undoubtedly “ brought ‘strongly before’’ Mr. 
Darwin’s “‘ mind in South America,” yet some of them had 
perhaps already been brought before it at an earlier time, 
which he did not happen to remember at the moment of 
writing his letter to Professor Haeckel and the opening 
paragraph of the ‘‘ Origin of Species.”’ 
