220 Claypole on Darwin and Geology 
appearance in intermediate strata of fishes, reptiles, birds, and niainini'fers,, 
has no ordinary claim to ovir favor, comprehending as it does the largest 
number of facts that science has perhaps ever attempted to embrace in- 
one grand generalization." 
" But will not transmutation if adopted, require us to include the human 
race in the same continuous series of developments so that we must hold 
that man himself has been derived by an unbroken line of descent from 
some one of the inferior animals? We certainly cannot escape from 
such a conclusion without abandoning many of the weightiest arguments 
which have been urged in support of variation and of natural selection 
considered as the subordinate causes by wliich new tyjies have been 
gradually introduced into the earth." ' 
These are most remarkable words coming as they did from 
the leading geologist in England, with a high reputation to risk 
by taking up a new, and in the minds of most a transcendental 
and in-eligious, theory; and the man who at that day dared thus 
to speak deserves the gratitude of not only every geologist but 
of every lover of truth to whatever science he devotes his atten- 
tion. Even those who follow no science owe not less a debt of 
gratitude to him who faced the obloquy and the odium that then 
awaited all who ventured to acknowledge connection with the 
new school of Evolutionists. It is difficult now to realize the 
fact, but it is within the memory and experience of men not be- 
yond mid-life — when the "Antiquity" and the "Descent of Man" 
were spoken of with bated breath as forbidden subjects, and 
when those who thought or spoke on those topics were viewed 
askance as "suspects" with whom it was not well to be associated. 
But so it was, as many can testify from experience. Such days 
can never return. No more questions so momentous remain to 
be solved in geology. The battle has been fought and the vic- 
tory won. Evolution is now the keyword to nature and we of 
these days can only look back to that time and live it over again 
in memory, while of the later generation we can say, as we 
said at the beginning of this paper, "Other men labored and ye 
have entered into their labors. " 
Note. Though it is a little off the main line of this paper yet it is timely 
and pleasant at the present moment when America is mourning the loss of 
her great botanist, to allude to the share which Dr. Gray contributed to 
the " Origin of Species." Darwin began a correspondence with him 
through Hooker which afterwards became constant and intimate. The 
1 Aniiqiiify of Man ^ iSbo. 
