50 



raised and tested when evolution was first started, and it was found, espe- 

 cially in the veo-etable kingdom, that when developed varieties are left to 

 themselves they do not revert to their original state, but simply become 

 dwindled specimens of those varieties. Apples, for instance, of a particular 

 sort simply turn to a crabbed condition of that particular sort ; they do not 

 revert to the common crab-apple. Now I come to what Dr. Wainwright 

 has said, and this is not the first time that we have had a pleasant contest 

 on this subject. He has alluded to the gap which exists between the 

 inorganic and the organic, but I have already referred to that as being beside 

 the question. He also spoke of the foraminifera as never having evolved any- 

 thing higher than themselves ; but he should turn to what I have said about 

 the retention of types, and to my argument that no doctrine of evolution 

 can be upheld which does not hold the retention of types. This is all that 

 I have to say upon the point. Mr. Wainwright then alluded to Professor 

 Huxley as denying the fact that thepalceontological forms supported evolution ; 

 he must have been referring to Professor Huxley's address in 1862, which 

 he himself said afterwards was a Brutus-like attack on the doctrine. It is 

 well to understand clearly what it is that geology does give us. If you go 

 beyond the tertiary period, the evolutionist is on very unsafe ground. Put 

 palcTontology entirely out of the pale — it is an old outpost, and the enemy 

 may have it as soon as they please. But read Professor Huxley's address of 

 last year, and the tables are completely turned. Discoveries have gone on in 

 the tertiary beds, and you find there, not only an abundance of links, but, as 

 Professor Huxley says, a moral conviction and an ascending series, not in one 

 group but in several. I refer you to Gaudry's book on the mammals found 

 in Southern Africa. In the other beds the destruction has been so great and 

 the geological results are so small and slight, that nothing can be said either 

 for or against. Perhaps something might be said for, but I do not press it, 

 because the evidence of evolution is not based on the mezzozoic or the palteon- 

 tological forms. 



Dr. Wainwright. — Do you mean to admit that the evidence from those 

 strata does tell against evolution ? 



Mr. Henslow. — Quite as much as for it. The last time we were here 

 Dr. Wainwright spoke of Hugh Miller. I think that it is scarcely fair to 

 bring up his opinions : he was strongly opposed to evolution, but he unfor- 

 tunately committed suicide, and his mind was not in a state at that time to 

 be capable of forming a sound opinion : he has been dead many years, and 

 drew his facts from the palaeological forms, on which our theory is not 

 based at all, long before these later discoveries were known. We look 

 upon them as having long gone by. They stand out as isolated spots with 

 the links gone, and we assume that the links were there, but that they have 

 been washed away and have disappeared. No one knows what Hugh Miller 

 would have thought if he had lived until now. As to Professor Sedgwick, I 

 think he is nearer a hundred years old than he is to the allotted term of life, 

 and it would be almost a miracle if he were to change his opinions now. 

 Take Bentham the botanist, and Lyell the geologist— both old men, but 



