i. p. 31.)

But it would appear that it is the fate of that most interesting of
all sciences, the history of evolution, to find its most important
steps and its greatest discoveries met by the firmest and most
persistent opposition. For while Wolff's fundamental theory of
epigenesis, which was promulgated in 1759, was not recognised until
1812, Lamarck's theory of descent, founded in 1809, had to wait fully
fifty years before Darwin, in 1859, showed it to be the greatest
acquisition of modern science; and during that period, in spite of all
the progress made in empirical science, how persistently this most
comprehensive of all biological theories was combated. We need only
recollect how, in 1830, the celebrated George Cuvier silenced its most
eloquent supporter, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in the midst of the Paris
Academy, and how almost at the same time its founder, the great
Lamarck, ended his life in blindness, misery and want, while his
opponent Cuvier was enjoying the highest honours and the greatest
splendour. And yet we know now that the despised and contemned Lamarck
and Geoffroy had already grasped truths of the highest significance,
while Cuvier's much-admired and universally-accepted theory of
creation is now on all hands neglected as an absurd and untenable
delusion. But as neither Haller as against Wolff, nor Cuvier as
against Lamarck, could permanently hinder the progress of free
inquiry, neither will Virchow succeed in turning back the course of
Darwin's admirable achievement; no, not even when he is supported by
the discourses of his friend Bastian.

While we cannot but earnestly lament Virchow's inimical attitude in
this great struggle for truth, we must not overlook the effects of his
well-founded authority in a yet wider sphere. For instance, the
hostile attitude which the greater part of the Berlin press
persistently maintains towards the doctrine of development
(particularly the Liberal "National-Zeitung") is to be referred to the
influence of his authority. But much as this reactionary vein, in this
and in other intelligent circles at Berlin, must be regretted on the
one hand, on the other we must observe that by this evil we have been
preserved from a far greater one. This greater evil--the greatest, in
fact, which German science could have to encounter--would be the
monopoly of knowledge at Berlin; a Centralisation of Science. The
injurious fruits of this system of centralisation in France, for
ins