DARWIN AND DARWINISM. 



By the Rev. S. Fletcher Williams. 



Eead before the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society, June 25th, 1882. 

 Whatever view may be taken of tbe Philosophical theory that 

 bears the name of Darwin, its strongest opponents freely acknowledge 

 the candour of its author, and the force and ingenuity of the arguments 

 by which it is supported. The publication, less than a quarter of a 

 century ago, of the Origin of Species, by means of Natural 

 Selection," caused a revolution in the views held as to the origin of 

 life. Fifteen years before that date, the "Vestiges of the Natural 

 History of Creation," restated in an attractive form, the Lamarckian 

 doctrine that existing forms of life have descended from pre-existing 

 forms ; and that work gave rise to a long and bitter controversy. This 

 controversy had nearly spent itself when Mr. Darwin, avoiding the 

 mistakes of the " Vestiges," came forward with his now celebrated 

 theory, that existing forms have been gradually developed by " natural 

 selection" and the " struggle for life;" or, as Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 puts it, " the survival of the fittest." The re-statement of views that 

 are as old as philosophy itself, supported as these were with great 

 ingenuity of argument, and by the aid of a vast store of scientific 

 information, most skilfully used, gave a fresh impetus to the 

 controversy, and turned it into a new and unexpected channel. It 

 was seen and felt that Charles Darwin was a man of no ordinary 

 power. His views at once commanded attention, and attention soon 

 grew into admiration or alarm, according to the views of those who 

 studied them. There was one peculiarity in the controversy. Mr. 

 Darwin wrote as a naturalist, and supported his hypothesis by an 

 appeal to the well-ascertained facts of a department of knowledge in 

 which he has probably an unequalled mastery, while most of the 

 criticism was directed against the hypothesis, and left the facts 

 untouched. Himself no controversialist, he continued unobtrusively 

 to apply himself to the work of observation and the accumulation of 

 further stores of knowledge, and allowed the din of controversy to 



expend itself without contributing to it a single word.* His letters 

 N.S., Vol. viii., Sept., 1882. 



_ * There is no trace in his writings of the storm to which his doctrine gave 

 rise, for he serenely went on with his self-appointed task, leaving the result to 

 be decided, not under the hasty impulses of the moment, but with the calmer 

 judgment of mature reflection. 



