A book that did a great deal to prepare the English-speaking people for the coming of evolution was “Vestiges of Creation,” published in 1844 by an unknown author. In Darwin’s opinion, “the work, from its powerful and brilliant style ... has done excellent service ... in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views.” This book was recommended to the readers of the Journal (=48=, 395, 1845) with the editorial remark that “we cannot subscribe to all of the author’s views.” We can probably best illustrate the opinions of Americans on the question of evolution just before the appearance of Darwin’s great work by directing attention to James D. Dana’s Thoughts on Species (=24=, 305, 1857). After reading this article and others of a similar nature by Agassiz, one comes to the opinion that unconsciously both men are proving evolution, but consciously they are firm creationists. It is astonishing that with their extended and minute knowledge of living organisms and their philosophic type of mind neither could see the true significance of the imperceptible transitions between some species, which if they do not actually pass into, at least shade towards, one another. Dana speaks of “the endless diversities in individuals” that compose a species, and then states that a living species, like an inorganic one, “is based on a specific amount or condition of concentered force defined in the act or law of creation.” Species, he says, are permanent, and hybrids “cannot seriously trifle with the true units of nature, and at the best, can only make temporary variations.” “We have therefore reason to believe from man’s fertile intermixture, that he is one in species: and that all organic species are divine appointments which cannot be obliterated, unless by annihilating the individuals representing the species.” Through the activities of the French the world was prepared for the reception of evolution, and now it was already in the minds of many advanced thinkers. In 1860 Asa Gray sent to the editor of the Journal (=29=, 1) an article by the English botanist, Joseph D. Hooker, entitled “On the Origination and Distribution of Species,” with these significant remarks: “The essay cannot fail to attract the immediate and profound attention of scientific men.... It has for some time been manifest that a re-statement of the Lamarckian hypothesis is at hand. We have this, in an improved and truly scientific form, in the theories which, recently propounded by Mr. Darwin, followed by Mr. Wallace, are here so ably and altogether independently maintained. When these views are fully laid before them, the naturalists of this country will be able to take part in the interesting discussion which they will not fail to call forth.”