WELLS. 221 



remains in the hypothetical state exemplified by 

 the guess-endeavours of Lamarck, Darwin, XWallace, 

 and others." 



This attitude of hostility towards modern Evolu- 

 tion was apparently maintained throughout Owen s 

 life, and although he outlived Darwin, I am not 

 aware that he ever published his acceptance of 

 the theory. In some of his lectures he is said to 

 have held that a limited degree of degeneration 

 is due to disuse. 



% 



The Selectionists. 



The modern theory of Natural Selection was ex- 

 pressed first by Dr. W. C. Wells, in 1813, then by 

 St. Hilaire the elder, then by Matthew, in 1831, and 

 finally, with considerably less clearness, if at all, by 

 Naudin, in 1852. Darwin gives us references to 

 the two English writers. That of Wells is the first 

 statement of the theory of the survival, not simply 

 of fittest organisms, as understood by previous 

 writers, such as Buffon and Treviranus, but of or- 

 ganisms surviving because of their possession of 

 favourable variations in single characters. Wells' 

 paper, read before the Royal Society in 1S13, was 

 entitled, " An Account of a White Female, part of 

 w^hose Skin resembles that of a Negro " ; it was not 

 published until 1818.^ He here recognizes the prin- 

 ciple of Natural Selection, as applied to the races 



1 See his Two Essays upon the Dro) and Single Vision. 



