1 88 ON THE RECEPTION OF 



sible. 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 1851-8. 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 known to me 

 whose knowledge and capacity compelled respect, and who 

 was, at the same time, a thorough-going evolutionist, was Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer, 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 interruption. Many and 

 prolonged were the battles we fought on this topic. But 

 even my friend's rare dialectic 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 respecting 

 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. 



In those days I had never even heard of Treviranus' 

 ' Biologic.' However, I had studied Lamarck attentively and 

 I had read the ' Vestiges ' with due care ; but neither of them 

 afforded me any good ground for changing my negative 

 and critical attitude. As for the 'Vestiges,' I confess that 

 the book simply irritated me by the prodigious ignorance 

 and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind manifested by the 

 writer. If it had any influence on me at all, it set me 

 against Evolution ; and the only review I ever have qualms 



