verschiedene Species derselben
Gattung betrachteten Formen von derselben Urform abstammen, werden
auch seine Gegner kaum leugnen.'--(Populaere Vortraege.)] Another
decade has now passed, and he is simply blind who cannot see the
enormous progress made by the theory during that time. Some of the
outward and visible signs of this advance are readily indicated. The
hostility and fear which so long prevented the recognition of Mr.
Darwin by his own university have vanished, and this year Cambridge,
amid universal acclamation, conferred on him her Doctor's degree. The
Academy of Sciences in Paris, which had so long persistently closed
its doors against Mr. Darwin, has also yielded at last; while sermons,
lectures, and published articles plainly show that even the clergy
have, to a great extent, become acclimatised to the Darwinian air. My
brief reference to Mr. Darwin in the Birmingham Address was based upon
the knowledge that such changes had been accomplished, and were still
going on.

That the lecture of Professor Virchow can, to any practical extent
disturb this progress of public faith in the theory of evolution, I do
not believe. That the special lessons of caution which he inculcates
were exemplified by me, years before his voice was heard upon this
subject, has been proved in the foregoing pages. In point of fact, if
he had preceded me instead of following me, and if my desire had been
to incorporate his wishes in my words, I could not have accomplished
this more completely. It is possible, moreover, to draw the
coincident lines still further, for most of what he has said about
spontaneous generation might have been uttered by me. I share his
opinion that the theory of evolution in its complete form involves the
passage from matter which we now hold to be inorganic into organised
matter; in other words, involves the assumption that at some period or
other of the earth's history there occurred what would be now called
'spontaneous generation.' I agree with him that the proofs of it are
still wanting.' 'Whoever,' he says, recalls to mind the lamentable
failure of all the attempts made very recently to discover a decided
support for the _generatio aequivoca_ in the lower forms of transition
from the inorganic to the organic world will feel it doubly serious to
demand that this theory, so utterly discredited, should be in any way
accepted as the basis of all our views of life.' I hold with Virchow
that the fai