, 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 to simple varieties and closely allied species, I believe
that Mr. Darwin's theory may explain many things, and throw a great
light upon numerous questions."--'Sur l'Origine de l'Espece. Par
Charles Darwin.' 'Archives des Sc. de la Bibliotheque Universelle de
Geneve,' pages 242, 243, Mars 1860.) On the other hand, Lyell, up to
that time a pillar of the anti-transmutationists (who regarded him,
ever afterwards, as Pallas Athene may have looked at Dian, after the
Endymion affair), declared himself a Darwinian, though not without
putting in a serious caveat. Nevertheless, he was a tower of strength,
and his courageous stand for truth as against consistency, did him
infinite honour. As evolutionists, sans phrase, I do not call to mind
among the biologists more than Asa Gray, who fought the battle
splendidly in the United States; Hooker, who was no less vigorous here;
the present Sir John Lubbock and myself. Wallace was far away in the
Malay Archipelago; but, apart from his direct share in the promulgation
of the theory of natural selection, no enumeration of the influences at
work, at the time I am speaking of, would be complete without the
mention of his powerful essay 'On the Law which has regulated the
Introduction of New Species,' which was published in 1855. On reading
it afresh, I have been astonished to recollect how small was the
impression it made.

In France, the influence of Elie de Beaumont and of Flourens--the
former of whom is said to have "damned himself to everlasting fame" by
inventing the nickname of "la science moussante" for Evolutionism (One
is reminded of the effect of another small academic epigram.