long period of 4000 years ? Hence we have endeavoured to let each man have his own say, and speak for himself, by collecting together in one focus the opinions of almost all the celebrities of the 18th and 19th centuries on the subject of EVOLUTION, as set forth in an address, supposed to be delivered by the Neanderthal Skull two centuries hence, when, to use the expressive words of Professor Tyndall, all the men and women of this fast and progressive age will "have melted into the infinite azure of the past."

Some years ago I had the privilege of exchanging works with Professor Tyndall, in which business I always found him kind, courteous and obliging. On one occasion I ventured to ask him this question" If Mr. Darwin's theory be true, that MAN is descended from the larvæ of an ascidian born of an egg, how was the first infant mammal nourished and fed, on the supposition that its immediate ancestor was a non-mammal?" Although I assured my distinguished

correspondent that the question was asked in no captious spirit, but with a real desire for information, I could obtain no response to my enquiry. I was therefore fain to let the matter drop, naturally concluding that if so eminent a scientist as Professor Tyndall was unwilling to answer so plain a question, the theory was not likely to be true.

After an interval of some years, I had an opportunity of asking the same question of Mr. Darwin himself, through the circumstance of his son and my son-in-law being brother-officers in the Royal Engineers; when he was kind enough to reply to my question without delay. After a brief correspondence, I give his final letter, which was written about a year before his lamented death, and which reads as follows:

"Down, Beckenham, Kent, Oct. 1, 1881. "Dear Sir,-The secretary tubules in the mammery glands are generally admitted to be of the same nature or homologous with the glands

over the whole skin. Even with mammals there is some gradation in perfection as in the mammery

glands; and in Echidna the young suck off the surface of the skin the secreted milk, for there is no nipple.

"In the case of certain fish, the ova are hatched in a marsupial sack on the surface of the stomach of the male, and the young, when hatched, feed on the mucus secreted from the skin lining the sack; and here, as I believe, we see what might be the commencement of a simple mammery gland, as in Echidna, etc. This is, of course, only an hypothesis. The exact steps in the Evolutionary process could be discovered only by the observation of animals which became extinct during the earliest part of the secondary period.

66

"Dear Sir, yours faithfully,

"CHARLES DARWIN."

We may fairly infer from this letter, that the distinguished founder of what is populary known as "The Darwinian Theory" acknowledged in the maturity of his age and fame-first, that it was only an hypothesis;" and secondly, that the exact steps in the Evolutionary process could only be discovered by the observation of animals which had become extinct ages ago, which seems like admitting that it never could or would be proved.

Professor Tyndall has well said, when alluding to mere theories, another name for "only an hypothesis," that "without verification, a theoretic conception is a mere figment of the intellect." * And the recently, but most deservedly "titled" Sir Richard Owen has said, that "observation of the actual change of any one species into another, through any or all of the hypothesised transmuting influences, has not yet been recorded." Hence the force of Dr. Elam's syllogism respecting hypotheses and theoretic conceptions: "The theory," he argues, "of Organic Evolution is an unverified theoretic conception. Therefore, Organic Evolution is a mere figment of the intellect."

Without seeking to lessen the deservedly high reputation of the late Mr. Darwin, one of the most eminent Naturalists of the 19th century, and who treated religion in a very different spirit from that adopted

* Fragments of Science, by John Tyndall, F.R.S., p. 469; fifth edition.

by many of his disciples, it is surprising to observe the extravagant praise which some of them have used towards the master, possibly with the hope and expectation that his great name might be conveniently used to cover their more advanced speculative theories. Thus at the time of the late Mr. Darwin's lamented death, the Western Morning News confidently asserted that he was to be ranked as one of the three greatest teachers of science which the world has ever seen. Bacon ranked as the first, Newton as the second, and Darwin as the third. I trust I shall not be deemed irreverent, if I say that such a comparison and such an order of merit, reminds me of an American writer who published a work entitled "Sands of Gold, or the wisest sayings of Solomon, Shakespeare and Martin Tupper." In similar strains Professor Huxley compared Darwin to Aristotle and Newton, while

* Professor Huxley compares Mr. Darwin to Aristotle, which may be accounted for thus. Darwin's observations on his various theories are