"Whether the particular shape which the doctrine of evolution, as applied to the organic world, took in Darwin's hands, would prove to be final or not, was, to me, a matter of indifference. In my earliest criticisms of the _Origin_ I ventured to point out that its logical foundation was insecure so long as experiments in selective breeding had not produced varieties which were more or less infertile; and that insecurity remains up to the present time. But, with any and every critical doubt which my sceptical ingenuity could suggest, the Darwinian hypothesis remained incomparably more probable than the creation hypothesis. And if we had none of us been able to discern the paramount significance of some of the most patent and notorious of natural facts, until they were, so to speak, thrust under our noses, what force remained in the dilemma--creation or nothing? It was obvious that, hereafter, the probability would be immensely greater that the links of natural causation were hidden from our purblind eyes, than that natural causation should be unable to produce all the phenomena of nature. The only rational course for those who had no other object than the attainment of truth, was to accept 'Darwinism' as a working hypothesis, and see what could be made of it. Either it would prove its capacity to elucidate the fact of organic life, or it would break down under the strain. This was surely the dictate of common sense, and for once common-sense carried the day. The result has been that complete _volte-face_ of the whole scientific world which must seem so surprising to the present generation. I do not mean to say that all the leaders of biological science have avowed themselves Darwinians; but I do not think that there is a single zoölogist, or botanist, or palæontologist, among the multitude of active workers of this generation, who is other than an evolutionist profoundly influenced by Darwin's views. Whatever may be the ultimate fate of the particular theory put forth by Darwin, I venture to affirm that, so far as my knowledge goes, all the ingenuity and all the learning of hostile critics has not enabled them to adduce a solitary fact of which it can be said that it is irreconcilable with the Darwinian theory. In the prodigious variety and complexity of organic nature, there are multitudes of phenomena which are not deducible from any generalisation we have yet reached. But the same may be said of every other class of natural objects. I believe that astronomers cannot yet get the moon's motions into perfect accordance with the theory of gravitation."