perception which leaves an uncomfortable impression.

If this is the state of things that prevails even now, it is not
surprising that in 1860 the general public should, with few
exceptions, have known of only one evolution, namely, that propounded
by Mr. Darwin. As a member of the general public, at that time
residing eighteen miles from the nearest human habitation, and three
days' journey on horseback from a bookseller's shop, I became one of
Mr. Darwin's many enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophical
dialogue (the most offensive form, except poetry and books of travel
into supposed unknown countries, that even literature can assume)
upon the "Origin of Species." This production appeared in the Press,
Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1861 or 1862, but I have long lost the
only copy I had.



CHAPTER II



How I came to write "Life and Habit," and the circumstances of its
completion.

It was impossible, however, for Mr. Darwin's readers to leave the
matter as Mr. Darwin had left it. We wanted to know whence came that
germ or those germs of life which, if Mr. Darwin was right, were once
the world's only inhabitants. They could hardly have come hither
from some other world; they could not in their wet, cold, slimy state
have travelled through the dry ethereal medium which we call space,