ich
the blood can be evaporated?" Nor does the reviewer fail to flavour
this outpouring of preposterous incapacity with a little stimulation of
the odium theologicum. Some inkling of the history of the conflicts
between Astronomy, Geology, and Theology, leads him to keep a retreat
open by the proviso that he cannot "consent to test the truth of
Natural Science by the word of Revelation;" but, for all that, he
devotes pages to the exposition of his conviction that Mr. Darwin's
theory "contradicts the revealed relation of the creation to its
Creator," and is "inconsistent with the fulness of his glory."

If I confine my retrospect of the reception of the 'Origin of Species'
to a twelvemonth, or thereabouts, from the time of its publication, I
do not recollect anything quite so foolish and unmannerly as the
'Quarterly Review' article, unless, perhaps, the address of a Reverend
Professor to the Dublin Geological Society might enter into competition
with it. But a large proportion of Mr. Darwin's critics had a
lamentable resemblance to the 'Quarterly' reviewer, in so far as they
lacked either the will, or the wit, to make themselves masters of his
doctrine; hardly any possessed the knowledge required to follow him
through the immense range of biological and geological science which
the 'Origin' covered; while, too commonly, they had prejudiced the case
on theological grounds, and, as seems to be inevitable when this
happens, eked out lack of reason by superfluity of railing.

But it will be more pleasant and more profitable to consider those
criticisms, which were acknowledged by writers of scientific authority,
or which bore internal evidence of the greater or less competency and,
often, of the good faith, of their authors. Restricting my survey to a
twelvemonth, or thereabouts, after the publication of the 'Origin,' I
find among such critics Louis Agassiz ("The arguments presented by
Darwin in favor of a universal derivation from one primary form of all
the peculiarities existing now among living beings have not made the
slightest impression on my mind."

"Until the facts of Nature are shown to have been mistaken by those who
have collected them, and that they have a different meaning from that
now generally assigned to them, I shall therefore consider the
transmutation theory as a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts,
unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its
tendency."--Silliman's 'Journal,' July, 1860