In my opinion it has done excellent service in this country in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views.
In 1846 the veteran geologist M.J.d'Omalius d'Halloy published in an excellent though short paper ("Bulletins de l'Acad.Roy.Bruxelles",tom.xiii, page 581) his opinion that it is more probable that new species have been produced by descent with modification than that they have been separately created: the author first promulgated this opinion in 1831.
Professor Owen, in 1849 ("Nature of Limbs", page 86), wrote as follows: "The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh under diverse such modifications, upon this planet, long prior to the existence of those animal species that actually exemplify it.

To what natural laws or secondary causes the orderly succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have been committed, we, as yet, are ignorant." In his address to the British Association, in 1858, he speaks (page li) of "the axiom of the continuous operation of creative power, or of the ordained becoming of living things." Further on (page xc), after referring to geographical distribution, he adds, "These phenomena shake our confidence in the conclusion that the Apteryx of New Zealand and the Red Grouse of England were distinct creations in and for those islands respectively.

Always, also, it may be well to bear in mind that by the word 'creation' the zoologist means 'a process he knows not what.'" He amplifies this idea by adding that when such cases as that of the Red Grouse are "enumerated by the zoologist as evidence of distinct creation of the bird in and for such islands, he chiefly expresses that he knows not how the Red Grouse came to be there, and there exclusively; signifying also, by this mode of expressing such ignorance, his belief that both the bird and the islands owed their origin to a great first Creative Cause." If we interpret these sentences given in the same address, one by the other, it appears that this eminent philosopher felt in 1858 his confidence shaken that the Apteryx and the Red Grouse first appeared in their respective homes "he knew not how," or by some process "he knew not what." This address was delivered after the papers by Mr.Wallace and myself on the Origin of Species, presently to be referred to, had been read before the Linnean Society.

When the first edition of this work was published, I was so completely deceived, as were many others, by such expressions as "the continuous operation of creative power," that I included Professor Owen with other palaeontologists as being firmly convinced of the immutability of species; but it appears ("Anat.of Vertebrates", vol.iii, page 796) that this was on my part a preposterous error.

In the last edition of this work I inferred, and the inference still seems to me perfectly just, from a passage beginning with the words "no doubt the type-form," etc.( Ibid., vol.i, page xxxv), that Professor Owen admitted that natural selection may have done something in the formation of a new species; but this it appears (Ibid.,vol.iii.  page 798) is inaccurate and without evidence.