On Mammalian Descent; the Hunterian Lectures for 1884

Abstract

AS far as we are aware, no attempt has hitherto been made to popularise in any detail the science of comparative embryology. It is therefore indicative of the characteristic originality of Prof. Parker that, on delivering a course of Hunterian lectures upon the embryology of the Mammalia, he should have aimed at charming a popular audience as well as at instructing a scientific one. We confess that upon reading the first paragraphs of his preface, in which he states his intention of handling his subject in a popular way, we felt apprehensive that, like sundry other lecturers with a similar aim and with subjects better suited to the killing of two birds with one stone, he was preparing for himself the misfortune of missing both his marks. But we had not got far into the first lecture without finding that our lecturer very well knew what he was about: he is provided with a double-shotted weapon of the most modern construction, and takes a genuine glee in knocking over some antediluvian tooth-bearing bird on the one side, and the sentimental scruples of a nineteenth-century audience upon the other. And this is done with so much of the vigour of enthusiastic science, as well as the genuine feeling of what we may term unspoiled poetry, that we feel our thanks are due to Miss Arabella Buckley who, it seems, first persuaded Prof. Parker to adopt this delightful method of writing. Moreover, it is obviously to him a natural method. We can everywhere see that he is now writing in the lines of his habitual thinking. The smallest details of his science catch a living glow from the ardour of his imagination, and as this imagination is everywhere charged with biblical thoughts and biblical metaphors, we are led by the force of example to compare it to some quickening spirit which makes all the dry bones of the skulls and skeletons stand up around him as an exceeding great army. Well it is for the cause of evolution that in Prof. Parker it has not only so indefatigable a worker, but likewise so elevated a preacher; and being thus as strong a champion on the side of sentiment as he is on that of science, we have only to congratulate him upon the wisdom of adopting Miss Buckley's advice, and appearing in the lists armed with the weapons of feeling as effectually as with those of fact.

On Mammalian Descent; the Hunterian Lectures for 1884.

By W. Kitchen Parker (London: Griffin and Co., 1885.)