88 



MY LIFE 



[Chap, 



to be circular, and that circles in contact cannot be changed 

 by any gradual process of modification involving saving of 

 vt^ax into triangles or squares. 



He then charges Darwin with three unwarrantable as- 

 sumptions, which he declares he ''brings to the ground like a 

 child's house of cards." These are (i) " The indefinite varia- 

 tion of species continuously in the one direction ; " (2) " That 

 the causes of variation, viz. natural advantage in the struggle 

 for existence (Darwin), are sufficient to account for the effects 

 asserted to be produced ; " and (3) " That succession implies 

 causation ; that the Palaeozoic Cephalopoda produced the 

 red-sandstone fishes ; that these in turn gave birth to the 

 Liassic reptiles, etc." I easily showed that all these alleged 

 "assumptions" of Darwin are absurd misrepresentations of 

 his real statements ; and I concluded by applying his own 

 words with regard to Darwinians as being really applicable to 

 himself : " No progress in natural science is possible so long 

 as men will take their rude guesses at truth for facts, and 

 substitute the fancies of their imagination for the sober rules 

 of reasoning." 



This criticism gave great offence to Dr. John Edward 

 Gray, of the British Museum, who, when I next met him, told 

 me that I ought not to have written in such a tone of ridicule 

 of a man who was much older and more learned than 

 myself. 



Mr. Haughton, however, seems to have taken it in good 

 part and to have forgotten it, for eighteen years later, when 

 he was F.R.S., Senior Lecturer of Trinity College, and 

 Professor of Geology in Dublin University, he sent me a 

 copy of his " Lectures on Physical Geography," inscribed 

 " With the best respects of the author." 



A little later I received from him the following letter : — 



"Trinity College, Dublin, April, 25, 1882. 



" My dear Mr. Wallace, 



" I have received your kind letter of 20th inst., for 

 which I feel much obliged. If the statements about gulf- 

 streams in my last paper support your own views rather 



