The Reception of the Origin of Species | Page 5

however, affords no ground
for mitigation of judgment; and the kindliness with which Mr. Darwin
speaks of his assailant, Bishop Wilberforce (vol.ii.), is so striking an
exemplification of his singular gentleness and modesty, that it rather
increases one's indignation against the presumption of his critic.) Since
Lord Brougham assailed Dr. Young, the world has seen no such
specimen of the insolence of a shallow pretender to a Master in Science
as this remarkable production, in which one of the most exact of
observers, most cautious of reasoners, and most candid of expositors,
of this or any other age, is held up to scorn as a "flighty" person, who
endeavours "to prop up his utterly rotten fabric of guess and
speculation," and whose "mode of dealing with nature" is reprobated as
"utterly dishonourable to Natural Science." And all this high and
mighty talk, which would have been indecent in one of Mr. Darwin's
equals, proceeds from a writer whose want of intelligence, or of
conscience, or of both, is so great, that, by way of an objection to Mr.
Darwin's views, he can ask, "Is it credible that all favourable varieties
of turnips are tending to become men;" who is so ignorant of
paleontology, that he can talk of the "flowers and fruits" of the plants of
the carboniferous epoch; of comparative anatomy, that he can gravely
affirm the poison apparatus of the venomous snakes to be "entirely
separate from the ordinary laws of animal life, and peculiar to
themselves;" of the rudiments of physiology, that he can ask, "what
advantage of life could alter the shape of the corpuscles into which the

blood can be evaporated?" Nor does the reviewer fail to flavour this
outpouring of preposterous incapacity with a little stimulation of the
odium theologicum. Some inkling of the history of the conflicts
between Astronomy, Geology, and Theology, leads him to keep a
retreat open by the proviso that he cannot "consent to test the truth of
Natural Science by the word of Revelation;" but, for all that, he devotes
pages to the exposition of his conviction that Mr. Darwin's theory
"contradicts the revealed relation of the creation to its Creator," and is
"inconsistent with the fulness of his glory."
If I confine my retrospect of the reception of the 'Origin of Species' to a
twelvemonth, or thereabouts, from the time of its publication, I do not
recollect anything quite so foolish and unmannerly as the 'Quarterly
Review' article, unless, perhaps, the address of a Reverend Professor to
the Dublin Geological Society might enter into competition with it. But
a large proportion of Mr. Darwin's critics had a lamentable resemblance
to the 'Quarterly' reviewer, in so far as they lacked either the will, or the
wit, to make themselves masters of his doctrine; hardly any possessed
the knowledge required to follow him through the immense range of
biological and geological science which the 'Origin' covered; while, too
commonly, they had prejudiced the case on theological grounds, and,
as seems to be inevitable when this happens, eked out lack of reason by
superfluity of railing.
But it will be more pleasant and more profitable to consider those
criticisms, which were acknowledged by writers of scientific authority,
or which bore internal evidence of the greater or less competency and,
often, of the good faith, of their authors. Restricting my survey to a
twelvemonth, or thereabouts, after the publication of the 'Origin,' I find
among such critics Louis Agassiz ("The arguments presented by
Darwin in favor of a universal derivation from one primary form of all
the peculiarities existing now among living beings have not made the
slightest impression on my mind."
"Until the facts of Nature are shown to have been mistaken by those
who have collected them, and that they have a different meaning from
that now generally assigned to them, I shall therefore consider the
transmutation theory as a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts,
unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency."--Silliman's
'Journal,' July, 1860, pages 143, 154. Extract from the 3rd volume of

'Contributions to the Natural History of the United States.'); Murray, an
excellent entomologist; Harvey, a botanist of considerable repute; and
the author of an article in the 'Edinburgh Review,' all strongly adverse
to Darwin. Pictet, the distinguished and widely learned paleontogist of
Geneva, treats Mr. Darwin with a respect which forms a grateful
contrast to the tone of some of the preceding writers, but consents to go
with him only a very little way. ("I see no serious objections to the
formation of varieties by natural selection in the existing world, and
that, so far as earlier epochs are concerned, this law may be assumed to
explain the origin of closely allied species, supposing for this purpose a
very long period of time."
"With regard