"
He extends the same view to animals. The dean believes that single species
of each genus were created in an originally highly plastic condition, and
that these have produced, chiefly by inter-crossing, but likewise by
variation, all our existing species.
In 1826 Professor Grant, in the concluding paragraph in his well-known
paper ("Edinburgh Philosophical Journal", vol. XIV, page 283) on the
Spongilla, clearly declares his belief that species are descended from
other species, and that they become improved in the course of modification.
This same view was given in his Fifty-fifth Lecture, published in the
"Lancet" in 1834.
In 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published his work on "Naval Timber and
Arboriculture", in which he gives precisely the same view on the origin of
species as that (presently to be alluded to) propounded by Mr. Wallace and
myself in the "Linnean Journal", and as that enlarged in the present
volume. Unfortunately the view was given by Mr. Matthew very briefly in
scattered passages in an appendix to a work on a different subject, so that
it remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew attention to it in the
"Gardeners' Chronicle", on April 7, 1860. The differences of Mr. Matthew's
views from mine are not of much importance: he seems to consider that the
world was nearly depopulated at successive periods, and then restocked; and
he gives as an alternative, that new forms may be generated "without the
presence of any mold or germ of former aggregates.
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