“He has, as a matter of fact, disposed of the doctrine of the immutability of species.... Few now are found to doubt that animals separated by differences far exceeding those that distinguish what we know as species have yet descended from common ancestors.” While thus completely admitting evolution in the organic world, Lord Salisbury attacked natural selection on two grounds--first, on the insufficiency of the time allowed by physicists for a process which is, of necessity, extremely slow in its operation; secondly, on the ground that “we cannot demonstrate the process of natural selection in detail; we cannot even, with more or less ease, imagine it.” And his main objection under this head was the supposed difficulty in securing the union of successful variations. The actual words have been already quoted on page 83, where it was shown that the criticism does not apply to natural selection, but to a theory mistaken by the speaker for that of Darwin. Curiously enough, the first objection of the insufficiency of time was the indirect cause of a subsequent trenchant criticism by Professor Perry of the line of mathematical reasoning on which the limit had been fixed. Huxley was called on to second the vote of thanks, and his speech had evidently been considered with the greatest care. I quote the passages which bear on evolution and natural selection from the _Times_ of August 9th, 1894, in which a _verbatim_ report is furnished:-- “... As one of those persons who for many years past had made a pretty free use of the comfortable word ‘evolution,’ let him remind them that 34 years ago a considerable discussion, to which the President had referred, took place in one of their sectional meetings upon what people frequently called the ‘Darwinism question,’ but which on that occasion was not the Darwinism question, but the very much deeper question which lay beneath the Darwinism question--he meant the question of evolution.... The two doctrines, the two main points, for which these men [Sir John Lubbock, Sir J. Hooker, and the speaker] fought were that species were mutable, and that the great variety of animal forms had proceeded from gradual and natural modification of the comparatively few primitive forms....” After alluding to the revolution in thought which had taken place in thirty-four years, he said:--