uld indicate a
lack of sense, as well as of modesty, to ascribe to the men of that
generation less capacity or less honesty than their successors possess.
What, then, are the causes which led instructed and fair-judging men of
that day to arrive at a judgment so different from that which seems
just and fair to those who follow them? That is really one of the most
interesting of all questions connected with the history of science, and
I shall try to answer it. I am afraid that in order to do so I must
run the risk of appearing egotistical. However, if I tell my own story
it is only because I know it better than that of other people.

I think I must have read the 'Vestiges' before I left England in 1846;
but, if I did, the book made very little impression upon me, and I was
not brought into serious contact with the 'Species' question until
after 1850. At that time, I had long done with the Pentateuchal
cosmogony, which had been impressed upon my childish understanding as
Divine truth, with all the authority of parents and instructors, and
from which it had cost me many a struggle to get free. But my mind was
unbiassed in respect of any doctrine which presented itself, if it
professed to be based on purely philosophical and scientific reasoning.
It seemed to me then (as it does now) that "creation," in the ordinary
sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in
imagining that, at some former period, this universe was not in
existence; and that it made its appearance in six days (or
instantaneously, if that is preferred), in consequence of the volition
of some pre-existent Being. Then, as now, the so-called a priori
arguments against Theism; and, given a Deity, against the possibility
of creative acts, appeared to me to be devoid of reasonable foundation.
I had not then, and I have not now, the smallest a priori objection to
raise to the account of the creation of animals and plants given in
'Paradise Lost,' in which Milton so vividly embodies the natural sense
of Genesis. Far be it from me to say that it is untrue because it is
impossible. I confine myself to what must be regarded as a modest and
reasonable request for some particle of evidence that the existing
species of animals and plants did originate in that way, as a condition
of my belief in a statement which appears to me to be highly improbable.

And, by way of being perfectly fair, I had exactly the same answer to
give to the evolut