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.