THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES: 541 



ever, if I tell my own story it is only because I know it bet- 

 ter than that of other people. 



I think I must have read the ' Vestiges ' before I left 

 England in 1846 ; but, if I did, the book made very little 

 impression upon me, and I was not brought into serious con- 

 tact with the ' Species ' question until after 1850. At that 

 time, I had long done with the Pentateuchal cosmogony, 

 which had been impressed upon my childish understanding 

 as Divine truth, with all the authority of parents and in- 

 structors, and from which it had cost me many a struggle to 

 get free. But my mind was unbiassed in respect of any doc- 

 trine which presented itself, if it professed to be based on 

 purely philosophical and scientific reasoning. It seemed to 

 me then (as it does now) that " creation," in the ordinary 

 sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no diffi- 

 culty in imagining that, at some former period, this universe 

 was not in existence ; and that it made its appearance in six 

 days (or instantaneously, if that is preferred), in consequence 

 of the volition of some pre-existent Being. Then, as now, 

 the so-called a priori arguments against Theism ; and, given 

 a Deity, against the possibility of creative acts, appeared to 

 me to be devoid of reasonable foundation. I had not then, 

 and I have not now, the smallest a priori objection to raise 

 to the account of the creation of animals and plants given in 

 ' Paradise Lost,' in which Milton so vividly embodies the 

 natural sense of Genesis. Far be it from me to say that it is 

 untrue because it is impossible. I confine myself to what 

 must be regarded as a modest and reasonable request for some 

 particle of evidence that the existing species of animals and 

 plants did originate in that way, as a condition of my belief 

 in a statement which appears to me to be highly improbable. 



And, by way of being perfectly fair, I had exactly the 

 same answer to give to the evolutionists of 185 1-8. Within 

 the ranks of the biologists, at that time, I met with nobody, 

 except Dr. Grant, of University College, who had a word to 

 say for Evolution — and his advocacy was not calculated to 

 advance the cause. Outside these ranks, the only person 



