lists, and though a few adopted the view
that closely allied species had descended from each other, the general
belief of the educated public was, that each species was a "special
creation" quite independent of all others; while the great body of
naturalists equally held, that the change from one species to another by
any known law or cause was impossible, and that the "origin of species"
was an unsolved and probably insoluble problem. The only other important
work dealing with the question was the celebrated _Vestiges of
Creation_, published anonymously, but now acknowledged to have been
written by the late Robert Chambers. In this work the action of general
laws was traced throughout the universe as a system of growth and
development, and it was argued that the various species of animals and
plants had been produced in orderly succession from each other by the
action of unknown laws of development aided by the action of external
conditions. Although this work had a considerable effect in influencing
public opinion as to the extreme improbability of the doctrine of the
independent "special creation" of each species, it had little effect
upon naturalists, because it made no attempt to grapple with the problem
in detail, or to show in any single case how the allied species of a
genus could have arisen, and have preserved their numerous slight and
apparently purposeless differences from each other. No clue whatever was
afforded to a law which should produce from any one species one or more
slightly differing but yet permanently distinct species, nor was any
reason given why such slight yet constant differences should exist at
all.

_Scientific Opinion before Darwin._

In order to show how little effect these writers had upon the public
mind, I will quote a few passages from the writings of Sir Charles
Lyell, as representing the opinions of the most advanced thinkers in the
period immediately preceding that of Darwin's work. When recapitulating
the facts and arguments in favour of the invariability and permanence of
species, he says: "The entire variation from the original type which any
given kind of change can produce may usually be effected in a brief
period of time, after which no further deviation can be obtained by
continuing to alter the circumstances, though ever so gradually,
indefinite divergence either in the way of improvement or deterioration
being prevented, and the least possible excess beyond the defined