Charles Neaves, Lord Neaves

As a judge of the Court of Session, Neaves was familiar with one of his predecessors, James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, to whom he credited the origination of the concepts of the theory of evolution.

[6] In 1875, Neaves published a poem within a book of verse[7][8] to establish this point: Though Darwin now proclaims the lawAnd spreads it far abroad, O!The man that first the secret sawWas honest old Monboddo.The architect precedence takesOf him that bears the hod, O!So up and at them, Land of Cakes,We'll vindicate MonboddoIn another instance he elaborates on Monboddo's writings again in Blackwood's Magazine, indicating the clarity with which Monboddo foresaw evolutionary theory: The rise of every man he loved to trace,Up to the very pod O!

And, in baboons, our parent raceWas found by old Monboddo.Their A, B, C, he made them speak,And learn their qui, quae, quod, O!Till Hebrew, Latin, Welsh, and GreekThey knew as well's Monboddo!Not only did Neaves produce poetry but he was a prolific critic, often in venues such as Blackwood's Magazine.

He also conducted critiques of others' poetry based upon how their attitudes deviated from virtue and a common theme of under-recognition of women, as in the scalding criticism of the poet Thomas Carew.

[9] In Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Quote number 6171),[10] as published originally in Darwin's The Origin of Species, he quipped on the subject of evolution: Pouter, tumbler and fantail are from the same source;The racer and hack may be traced to one horse;So men were developed from monkeys of course,Which nobody can deny.This quote became so famous in that early era that the authorship of the quotation became a matter of public dispute.

Although Bartlett and Darwin clearly attributed the quotation to Neaves, Zachary Macaulay argued that he had made this statement three years earlier.