“ He was full of interesting scientific knowledge and had a gift for expression both in biological exposition and in fiction. His more purely scientific books (such as Physiological Aesthetics, 1877; The Evolutionist at Large, 1881; The Evolution of the Idea of God, 1897) contain much original matter, popularly expressed, and he was a cultured exponent of the evolutionary idea in various aspects of biology and anthropology. He first attracted attention as a novelist with a sensational story, The Devil’s Die (1888) , though this was by no means his first attempt at fiction ”