To CHARLES DARWIN, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., etc., etc., etc.

Sir:

To you is dedicated this faithful report of a humble attempt to confirm, explain, and elucidate the wonderful and irrefragable theory of which you are the discoverer and the promulgator. Of which dedication the appropriateness is manifest. What other disposition of the work of your learned kinsman would be so fitting as to lay it at your feet, hind-thumbless although they be? He follows you feebly and afar. But remember that he tells only what he knows, and does not attempt to soar with you to the dizzy heights of speculation, or dive with you into the depths of disbelief. Deign, sir, to accept this modest tribute to the fame of one who has done so much to elevate our conception of ourselves and of the great scheme of creation; and look with the generous eye of exalted genius upon the honest and simple effort of a co-laborer who strives, with you, to convince the world that a Shakespeare may be but an oyster raised to the one-thousandth power, or even a Darwin the cube root of a ring-tailed monkey.