luable labours and active brains
of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.

Nevertheless, important as has been the impulse and direction given by
those writers to both our observations and speculations, the solution will
not (if the views here advocated are correct) ultimately present that
aspect and character with which it has issued from the hands of those
writers.

Neither, most certainly, will that solution agree in appearance or
substance with the more or less crude conceptions which have been put forth
by most of the opponents of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace. [Page 3]

Rather, judging from the more recent manifestations of thought on opposite
sides, we may expect the development of some _tertium quid_--the resultant
of forces coming from different quarters, and not coinciding in direction
with any one of them.

As error is almost always partial truth, and so consists in the
exaggeration or distortion of one verity by the suppression of another
which qualifies and modifies the former, we may hope, by the synthesis of
the truths contended for by various advocates, to arrive at the one
conciliating reality.

Signs of this conciliation are not wanting: opposite scientific views,
opposite philosophical conceptions, and opposite religious beliefs, are
rapidly tending by their vigorous conflict to evolve such a systematic and
comprehensive view of the genesis of species as will completely harmonize
with the teachings of science, philosophy, and religion.

To endeavour to add one stone to this temple of concord, to try and remove
a few of the misconceptions and mutual misunderstandings which oppose
harmonious action, is the aim and endeavour of the present work. This aim
it is hoped to attain, not by shirking difficulties, but analysing them,
and by endeavouring to dig down to the common root which supports and
unites diverging stems of truth.

It cannot but be a gain when the labourers in the three fields above
mentioned, namely, science, philosophy, and religion, shall fully recognize
this harmony. Then the energy too often spent in futile controversy, or
withheld through prejudice, may be profitably and reciprocally exercised
for the mutual benefit of all.

Remarkable is the rapidity with which an interest in the question of
specific origination has spread. But a few years ago it scarcely occupied
the minds of any but naturalists. Then the crude theory put forth by
Lamarck, and by his English interpreter the author