1884.J Professor Huxley's Darwinism. 69 
the ingratitude of evolutionists by the installation of palae- 
ontology as “the only perfectly safe foundation for the 
doctrine of Evolution ” (“ Manual of the Anatomy of Inver- 
tebiated Animals, Introduction, p. 41)* Those who prefer 
to advocate or refute the doCtrine of our Simian origin not 
as a meie deduction, or upon the strength of the sparse 
palseontological material at present available, have especially 
reason to be vexed. 
Preceding the epilogue is a digression on Geological Time, 
wherein the uninformed ” are reproached for discerning “a 
solid foundation ” for the belief that sufficient past time is 
not at the evolutionist’s disposal. 
“ I desire to be informed,” said the lecturer, “ what is the 
foundation for the statement that evolution does require so 
great a time ” ; but Mr. Darwin never complied with the 
lequest. His uninformed readers may, however, answer as 
follows : — “ We borrowed from the 6 Origin of Species ’ itself 
out information that ‘ 140 million years can hardly be consi- 
dered^ as sufficient ’ for pre-Cambrian evolution, and that 
60 million years ‘ appears a very short time for ’ post-Cambrian 
evolution (p. 286). Further, we find it repeatedly insisted 
upon in the ‘ Origin of Species ’ that evolution by natural 
selection must be an extremely slow process, while on pages 
269, 270 we notice a passage which we think it legitimate to 
interpret as meaning that under Nature we must not expeCt 
to find a breed ‘ sensibly changed in the course of two or three 
centuries.' ” 
. ^ One smiles when watching Prof. Huxley thus correcting 
“ the uninformed,” Mr. Darwin combatting “certain natu- 
ralists,” and neither mentioning the other personally. 
The Simplicity of Darwinism and Teleology. 
That Prof. Huxley should have found out that “the 
‘ Origin of Species ’ is by no means an easy book to read — 
if by reading is implied the full comprehension of an author’s 
term of a vast, and, so far as our present knowledge goes, unrecorded pro- 
gression” £' Proc. Roy. Inst.,” June 3rd, 1859). Cf. that speculative treat 
Illogical Geology ” in Mr. Herbert Spencer’s “ Essays : Scientific, Political 
and Speculative ” (vol. i.), published the following month in the “ Universal 
Review.” Or— and I had thus understood Prof. Huxley when writing this 
sedlion — it may be that he considered persistent types favourable evidence, in- 
asmuch as he thought philosophers would be reludant to ascribe to the Creator 
the performance of an operation so whimsical as the repeated destru&ion and 
re-creation of a few favoured forms,— or their specially permitted survival of 
catastrophies extirpating the remaining fauna. 
