Less than the foregoing tribute both to Messrs. Darwin and
Wallace I will not, and more I cannot pay.
Let us now turn to the most authoritative exponent of latter-day
evolution--I mean to Mr. Wallace, whose work, entitled "Darwinism,"
though it should have been entitled "Wallaceism," is still so far
Darwinistic that it develops the teaching of Mr. Darwin in the
direction given to it by Mr. Darwin himself--so far, indeed, as this
can be ascertained at all--and not in that of Lamarck. Mr. Wallace
tells us, on the first page of his preface, that he has no intention
of dealing even in outline with the vast subject of evolution in
general, and has only tried to give such an account of the theory of
natural selection as may facilitate a clear conception of Darwin's
work. How far he has succeeded is a point on which opinion will
probably be divided. Those who find Mr. Darwin's works clear will
also find no difficulty in understanding Mr. Wallace; those, on the
other hand, who find Mr. Darwin puzzling are little likely to be
less puzzled by Mr. Wallace. He continues:-
"The objections now made to Darwin's theory apply solely to the
particular means by which the change of species has been brought
about, not to the fact of that change."
But "Darwin's theory"--as Mr. Wallace has elsewhere proved that he
understands--has no reference "to the fact of that change"--that is
to say, to the fact that species have been modified in course of
descent from other species.
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