ical student as distinguished from those of a professed
naturalist.

The case, however, is different with the second instalment, which will
be published at no very distant date. Here I have not followed with
nearly so much closeness the material of my original lectures. On the
contrary, I have had in view a special class of readers; and, although I
have tried not altogether to sacrifice the more general class, I shall
desire it to be understood that I am there appealing to naturalists who
are specialists in Darwinism. One must say advisedly, naturalists who
are specialists in Darwinism, because, while the literature of Darwinism
has become a department of science in itself, there are nowadays many
naturalists who, without having paid any close attention to the subject,
deem themselves entitled to hold authoritative opinions with regard to
it. These men may have done admirable work in other departments of
natural history, and yet their opinions on such matters as we shall
hereafter have to consider may be destitute of value. As there is no
necessary relation between erudition in one department of science and
soundness of judgment in another, the mere fact that a man is
distinguished as a botanist or zoologist does not in itself qualify him
as a critic where specially Darwinian questions are concerned. Thus it
happens now, as it happened thirty years ago, that highly distinguished
botanists and zoologists prove themselves incapable as judges of general
reasoning. It was Darwin's complaint that for many years nearly all his
scientific critics either could not, or would not, understand what he
had written--and this even as regarded the fundamental principles of his
theory, which with the utmost clearness he had over and over again
repeated. Now the only difference between such naturalists and their
successors of the present day is, that the latter have grown up in a
Darwinian environment, and so, as already remarked, have more or less
thoughtlessly adopted some form of Darwinian creed. But this scientific
creed is not a whit less dogmatic and intolerant than was the more
theological one which it has supplanted; and while it usually
incorporates the main elements of Darwin's teaching, it still more
usually comprises gross perversions of their consequences. All this I
shall have occasion more fully to show in subsequent parts of the
present work; and allusion is made to the matter here merely for the
sake of observing that in