20 Proceedings of the Newport Natural History Society. 
of the development of his mental and spiritual nature from 
the animal nature, are so far without any valid foundation 
either in science or in logic. 
But the advent of Darwin’s “Descent of Man” was fol¬ 
lowed by a flood of more or less valuable treatises on the 
subject by scientists, clergymen and laics. The doctrine 
of evolution, and even that of natural selection, was applied 
to every category of knowledge, metaphysics, ethics, religion, 
art, and industry. In most instances these conclusions are , 
more imaginative than valid, and in many cases a fancied 
analogy is made to do duty for both cause and effect. Lack 
of scientific training, combined with a vivid imagination, 
is responsible for much of the non-technical evolutionary 
literature of the present century. 
Vast was the influence which Darwin exerted on the scien¬ 
tific thought of the time, and the stimulus which he gave 
to scientific investigation, no less than to scientific specula¬ 
tion, cannot easily be estimated. Nevertheless, brilliant as 
were his generalizations, they failed to account satisfactorily 
for the phenomena upon which they had been brought to 
bear. Many naturalists, like Mivart and Asa Gray, while 
holding to the doctrine of evolution, denied the efficacy of 
purely natural and accidental variations alone in accounting 
for the phenomena of specific genesis. Others, like Romanes 
and Wallace, while agreeing in the main with Darwin, 
either modify natural selection or relegate it to a subordi¬ 
nate place. Wallace probably stands nearer to Darwin than 
any other naturalist of the present day, and even he excludes 
man from the operation of natural selection and altogether 
rejects Darwin’s hypothesis of sexual selection. Within a 
few years a new school of evolutionists has arisen, headed 
by Weismann and represented in England by many natural¬ 
ists, with Lankester at their head. The fundamental doc¬ 
trine of this school is heredity. Its supporters deny the 
possibility of the transmission of acquired characters and 
refer the origin of variations to the germ-plasm of the 
sexual elements, which cannot be influenced but preserves 
