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raised and tested when evolution was first started, and it was found, espe- 
cially in the vegetable 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 the palaeontological 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 
palaeontology 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 G-audry’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 palaeon- 
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 Beirtham the botanist, and Lyell the geologist— both old men, but 
