1878.] 
Doctrine of Development , 
467 
supply of food and the other conditions of existence will 
allow. The probability is, then, that of the multitudes of 
individuals who successively flourish some will die under 
circumstances favourable to the fossilisation of their remains. 
The differences of opinion we have been considering on 
the mode in which Evolution is effected, its main causes, 
and the laws of its adtion, are not surprising in view of the 
extent, the complexity, and the difficulty of the subject. 
Mr. Darwin has not so much solved the great problem of 
organic life as shown the way in which its successful study 
and its ultimate solution are possible. But whilst the 
greatest naturalists of the day are eagerly and patiently de- 
voting themselves to this task, there are others who still 
feel free to introduce into the question extraneous difficulties, 
and to appeal to the passions and prejudices of an unscien- 
tific public. 
Whilst waiting for an unpundlual train, at Dartford 
Station, our eye was caught by Mr. Morris’s pamphlet. We 
read it through with equal feelings of surprise and regret. 
It is a work which might have been pardoned if it had ap- 
peared ten years before its adfual date (1875), and if it had 
been from the pen of some journalist, novelist, barrister, 
&c., who could scarcely distinguish a humming-bird from a 
Sphinx-moth ; but the Rev. F. O. Morris is himself a natu- 
ralist of merit, and, had he been so minded, might surely 
have criticised Mr. Darwin’s theories, if unfavorably, still 
in a manner more useful to Science and more creditable to 
himself. As it is he sins equally against good taste, logic, 
and fadts. Here is a specimen taken at random : — “ I believe 
that such persons, in former times, as Sir Isaac Newton, 
Herschell, Lord Bacon, Dr. Johnson, Milton, Locke, Sir 
Matthew Hale, &c., who were believers in the Bible, were 
far behind me in intellect and knowledge. I believe, in like 
manner, that others in the present time, who are believers 
also as they were, such as Sir Roundell Palmer, Lord 
Hatherley, Lord Shaftesbury, Faraday, Sir David Brewster, 
&c., and others who like them have taken the highest 
honours in the Universities, and distinguished themselves 
in the highest departments of art, science, and politics, are 
quite beneath me in mind and attainments, for if I am right 
— as I must be, and therefore am — they of course must be 
wrong.” * 
* It might be asked in what University Faraday graduated, till the day 
when he conferred rather than received honour by accepting degrees ? We 
might also inquire in what “ highest departments of art” Sir Roundell Palmer 
Lord Hatherley, or Lord Shaftesbury has distinguished himself? 
2 H 2 
