The Forward Way.

The limits of the former method are obvious, but I might also attempt to follow the little story as a crime is followed and described by eye-witnesses. So I go to an old-fashioned rope-factory and ask the foreman questions about the making of twine, cords, ropes and cables. He shows me bundles of hemp; he calls them Russian, Italian or American, and goes on to tell me how the fibre is “heckled” or combed, how “tow” is separated from “line,” and how the yarns are pressed together and twisted, how they are at first rough and bristly, and are then dressed, polished, and “sized” with such a starch as that of the potato. When I proceed to ask him about the plant itself his interest flags, and he becomes vague. He says, “You had better ask the Head, young Mr. X., he knows these things better.” I find the Head with his golf clubs over his shoulder and about to start on his “business,” and he is polite, but says he knows very little about the origin of his hemp. “You should go over the way and ask Messrs. Y. if they will let you see the expert who advises them in their business, he will know.” The expert is at home and kindly and fully describes to me the early home of the wild Cannabis Sativa in a moderate climate of Asia, the rich soil it needs for its growth and the various countries of the world into which it has been introduced; and the bast-fibres of the bark of this plant which from remote antiquity has supplied the silky stuff. He then tells me how the stems are dried and crushed, and then of the important stage of fermenta­tion or “retting” in water, how they are again beaten in a “break,” then rubbed and “scutched,” and finally “heckled” or combed; and, as to analytic chemistry, he tells me that the chief constituent is cellulose. This quest is now over and I know much I could not find out by the backward method, though the dependence of its rival upon the presence of honest and capable eye-witnesses is not less obvious. It is not alone in ecclesiastical history that cheats and forgers of documents exist. In the world of Nature there may be, for all we know, biological False Decretals that may lead us far astray, such perhaps as Amphioxous and Archæopteryx, and the Pseudo-Isidore who produced them may yet be discovered.

CHAPTER II.
REVIEW OF THE POSITION

The modern story of the theory of organic evolution shows certain important dates—1859, 1880, 1894, 1895, 1899 and 1909. These begin with the Origin of Species and end with the publica­tion of a volume in commemora­tion of its jubilee, when most of the leading students of evolution united to render homage to Darwin. The year 1859 has been so often and so worthily treated that it is enough here to say that the fifty years between the issue of the work of Darwin and Wallace and 1909 saw a greater revolu­tion in biology, speculative and practical, than any period so relatively brief had ever seen.

In the year 1880 the “coming of age” of the Origin of Species was celebrated. On the 9th of April at the Royal Institu­tion an address was given by the powerful friend, champion and candid critic of Darwin, and before the scientific and educated world Huxley was able to say with his own force and directness: “Evolution is no longer an hypothesis, but an historical fact.” It may be noted in passing that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is not referred to in the address. Challenges and opposi­tion from various quarters met this confident claim of the formidable speaker, as doubtless he desired, but the work of the succeeding half-century has done little or nothing that does not establish that claim. It is hardly to be doubted that if in the jubilee-year, 1909, Huxley had been alive on this earth, instead of elsewhere, his eloquent voice would have been heard to declare with emphasis equal to that of 1880: “Selection is no longer an hypothesis, but an historical fact.” Some such statement, with the imprimatur of a great name would have removed from the jubilee-volume that slight aspect as of a Dutch chorus[3] which is apparent in it. A remark of Kelvin’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 introduc­tion 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.