2IO PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



condition of my belief in a statement which appears 

 to me to be highly improbable. . . . 



" And by way of being perfectly fair, I had ex- 

 actly the same answer to give to the evolutionists 

 of 1851-58. Within the ranks of the biologists of 

 that time I met with nobody, except Dr. Grant, of 

 University College, who had a word to say for Evo- 

 lution, and his advocacy was not calculated to ad- 

 vance the cause. Outside these ranks the only per- 

 son known to me whose knowledge and capacity 

 compelled respect, and who was at the same time a 

 thoroughgoing evolutionist, was Mr. Herbert Spen- 

 cer, whose acquaintance I made, I think, in 1852, 

 and then entered into the bonds of a friendship 

 which I am happy to think has known no interrup- 

 tion. Many and prolonged were the battles we 

 fought on this topic. But even my friend's rare dia- 

 lectic skill and copiousness of apt illustration could 

 not drive me from my agnostic position. I took my 

 stand upon two grounds: firstly, that up to that time 

 the evidence in favour of transmutation was wholly 

 insufficient; and secondly, that no suggestion re- 

 specting the causes of the transmutation assumed 

 which had been made was in any way adequate to 

 explain the phenomena. Looking back at the state 

 of knowledge at that time, I really do not see that 

 any other conclusion was justifiable. 



" As I have already said, I imagine that most of 

 those of my contemporaries who thought seriously 

 about the matter were very much in my own state 



