74 
The Presidential Address. 
qualities which in their harmonious combination mark out 
Mr. Darwin as the man, perhaps of all men now living, best 
fitted for the great work he has undertaken and accomplished.” 
I have thus far dealt only with the ‘Origin of Species’ 
because, of Darwin’s literary productions, this is doubtless 
the one which has had the greatest influence upon contem¬ 
porary thought. It must be remembered that this work was 
considered by its author to be a mere abstract of the vast 
body of evidence and the enormous array of facts which he 
had collected, and he promised to expand the various chapters 
into future volumes. The ‘ Variation of Animals and Plants 
under Domestication ’ was the fulfilment of this promise with 
respect to the first chapter of the ‘ Origin.’ The storm 
raised by the publication of the latter book, both within and 
without the ranks of science, will be long remembered by 
those who were contemporaneous with this first truly 
scientific attack upon the older doctrine of the special 
creation of species by miraculous agency. It is somewhat 
difficult for those who, like ourselves, have, so to speak, 
been brought up in the school of evolution to realise the 
state of mind of pre-Darwinian naturalists with respect to 
this question of species. The supposed authority of ancient 
tradition had, without doubt, stultified all enquiry in this 
direction, and workers intent only upon recording and 
describing had fallen into a state of intellectual torpor as 
regards that philosophical stimulus so vital to progress 
in all departments of natural knowledge. Occasional attempts 
had certainly been made to overthrow the current belief in 
the immutability of species, but these had not produced any 
permanent effect. It was Darwin’s ‘ Origin of Species ’ that 
first caused a rattling among the dry bones of the venerable 
dogmas that had so long usurped the place of scientific 
thought; with the appearance of this work superstition was 
driven from its last stronghold in the realm of natural 
science. 
If, as some writers assert, virulence of attack is a criterion 
of the truth of a new doctrine, the ‘ Origin of Species ’ 
certainly came into the world under very favourable auspices. 
