XX HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



his opinion that it is more probable that new species 

 have been produced by descent with modification than 

 that they have been separately created : the author first 

 promulgated this opinion in 1831. 



Professor Owen, in 1849 ('Nature of Limbs/ p. 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 secondary 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." 

 Farther on (p. xc), after referring to geographical dis- 

 tribution, he adds, " These phenomena shake our confi- 

 dence in the conclusion that the Apteryx of New 

 Zealand and the Eed 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 how the Eed Grouse came to be there, 

 and there exclusively ; signifying also, by this mode of 

 expressing such ignorance, his belief that both the bird 

 and the islands owed their origin to a great first 

 Creative Cause." If we interpret these sentences given 

 in the same Address, one by the other, it appears that 

 this eminent philosopher felt in 1858 his confidence 



