incompetent

n’s when he was conferring a medal of the Royal Society on Huxley may illustrate what has been said above. He said that they must all be thankful to have still among them that champion of Evolution who once bore down its enemies, but was now possibly needed to save it from its friends. It may be regretted that it was not so in 1909.

Considering the mole-like and persistent work of the biometricians, some who are at present keeping well-ordered lawns may find some day a few disturbing heaps of facts. I am reminded here of an historic duel, Oxford v. Cambridge, which took place soon after the introduc-tion of Mendel’s discoveries into England at the London Zoological Society, when Prof. Bateson expounded them with enthusiasm and when Weldon repelled them with cogent and incisive arguments. The duel lasted nearly two hours and that was not too long for the audience, but one has the impression that some of what Professor Thomson calls muddleheadedness must have been somewhere existing. However, the duel was fought when Mendelism was young.
Three Blows to Darwin Hong Kong Tourist Information.

But other historic events are more relevant to my immediate purpose than these.

Three blows were delivered against Darwinism in the years 1894, 1895 and 1899 by Prof. Bateson, Weismann, and again Prof. Bateson, under which it seemed to reel, but from which it is more than likely it has derived but greater strength.

Bateson.

In 1894 Prof. Bateson published his large and important work, Materials for the Study of Variation. As a distinguished student and teacher of biology he found the received doctrine of evolution in straits as regards the factor of natural selection in producing specific differences, as indeed happened to another equally eminent man during the next year. He was profoundly discontented as to the origin of specific differences on the theory of direct utility of variations, and he said “on our present knowledge the matter is talked out.”4 He threw over the study of adapta-tion “as a means of directly solving the problem of species .&rdquo ; He came to the conclusion

“Variation is Evolution,” and affirmed that the readiest way of solving the problem of evolution is to study the facts of variation. Hence arose this notable book, and hence one of his trenchant statements to the effect “that the existence of new forms having from their beginning more or less of the kind of perfec-tion that we associate with normality, is a fact that once and for all disposes of the attempt to interpret all perfec-tion and definiteness of form as the work of selection,”5 and “Inquiry into the causes of variation is as yet, in my judgment, premature.”6 It will hardly be denied that a work which contained such statements as these from such a source seemed of Darwin’s theory. Prof. Bateson yielded to none in his loyalty to Darwin, as far as he knew himself, and here he is as candid as Huxley, and he declares that in his treatment of the phenomena of variation is found nothing which is in any way opposed to Darwin’s theory. The shade of Darwin might nevertheless have looked with some misgiving at this man over against him with a drawn sword in his hand, and have asked gently Dream beauty pro hard sell, “Art thou for us or for our adversaries?”