4^8 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
same theory as mine long before (in 1844), had worked it out in con- 
siderable detail, and had shown the MSS to Sir Charles Lyell and to 
Sir Joseph Hooker; and on their recommendation my paper and suffi- 
cient extracts from his MSS, work were read at a meeting of the 
liiiinjcan society in July of the same year, when the theory of natural 
selection or survival of the fittest was first made known to the world. 
But it received little attention till Darwin’s great and epoch-making 
book appeared at the end of the following year.” 
En(juiring as to the state of educated, literary and scientific 
opinion on the general subject at the present hour, Mr. Wallace says : 
“ Evolution is now universally accepted as a demonstrated princi- 
ple, and not one single writer of the slightest eminence, that I am 
aware of, declares his disbelief in it What was ‘ a great 
heresy ’ to Sir John Herschel in 1845, and the ‘ mystery of mysteries^ 
down to the date of Darwin’s book, is now the common knowledge of 
every clever school-boy, and of everyone who reads even the news- 
papers. The only thing discussed now is, not the fact of evolution — 
that is admitted — but merely whether or no the causes alleged by 
Darwin are themselves sufficient to explain evolution of species, or 
require to be supplemented by other causes, known or unknown. 
Probably so complete a change of educated opinion on a question of 
such vast difficulty and complexity was never before effected in so short 
a time.” 
One of the surprises which greets the ordinary mind in dealing 
with the Darwinian work is the extent of the variations which are 
possible and probable under the one general law. All that Darwin 
tells us of results obtained, of the effects of domestication, of cross- 
breeding in plants and animals, of knowledge which he derived from 
the motions of plants and from the lives of insects which lived among 
the vegetation that he observed, is delightful reading, and yet quite as 
much may we observe were our opened eyes at some flower show, 
where we see gorgeous masses of bloom, lovely developed and beauti- 
fully painted leaves, the very aristocracy of plant life, produced by the 
skill of the planter from some weed of humble origin. 
]\Ir. Huxley raises the point — he almost vexes us by raising it — 
whether it may not be possible that while this existing universe is a 
universe of law and order, a universe of simplest matter and definitely 
operating energy, it is as well a product of evolution from some pre- 
