And evolutionism is gradually though slowly filtering downward. It is permeating the daily press of the nations, and gaining for its vocabulary a recognised place in the phraseology of the unlearned vulgar. Such expressions as 'natural selection,' 'survival of the fittest,' 'struggle for existence,' 'adaptation to the environment,' and all the rest of it, are becoming as household words upon the lips of thousands who only know the name of Darwin as a butt for the petty empty jibes of infinitesimal cheap witlings. And Darwinism will trickle down still through a thousand channels, by definite popularisation, and still more by indefinite absorption into the common thought of universal humanity, till it becomes part and parcel of the general inheritance, bred in our bone and burnt into our blood, an heir-loom of our race to all time and in all countries. Great thoughts like his do not readily die: they expand and grow in ten thousand bosoms, till they transform the world at last into their own likeness, and adapt it to the environment they have themselves created by their informing power.

Happy above ordinary human happiness, Charles Darwin lived himself to see the prosperous beginning of this great silent philosophical revolution. Harvey's grand discovery, it has been well said, was scoffed at for nearly a whole generation. Newton's marvellous law of gravitation was coldly received even by the gigantic intellect of Leibnitz himself. Francis Bacon, in disgrace and humiliation, could only commend his name and memory 'to foreign nations and to the next age.' It is too often so with thinkers of the first and highest order: it was not so, happily, with the gentle soul of Charles Darwin. Alone among the prophets and teachers of triumphant creeds, he saw with his own eyes the adoption of the faith he had been the first to promulgate in all its fulness by every fresh and powerful mind of the younger race that grew up around him. The Nestor of evolutionism, he had lived among two successive generations of thinkers, and over the third he ruled as king. With that crowning joy of a great, a noble, and a happy life, let us leave him here alone in his glory.

INDEX.


AGASSIZ, 17, 33
Anticipations of natural selection, 81
'Antiquity of Man,' 120
Astronomy, 15

BADEN-POWELL, 78
Bahia, 43
Bates, 18; in Brazil, 79; on mimicry, 117
'Beagle,' voyage of the, 38; Zoology of, 59
Bell, Sir C, 155
Boucher de Perthes, 120
Brazil, 43
British Association, 118
Buffon, 7

CHAMBERS, Robert, 18; his 'Vestiges of Creation,' 70
Colenso on the Pentateuch, 121
'Coral Reefs,' 68
Cuvier, 12; as a geologist, 13; system of animals, 63

DARWIN, Charles, his ancestry, 20; birth, 27; birthplace, 31;
contemporaries, 33; education, 34; at Edinburgh University, ib.;
at Cambridge, 35; starts on the voyage of the 'Beagle,' 38; returns to
England, 58; publishes his journal, 59; plans 'Origin of Species,' 60;
elected to Royal Society, 64; secretary to Geological Society, 64;
marries, ib.; publishes 'Coral Reefs,' 68; geological
observations, 76; Monograph on Barnacles, ib.; publishes 'Origin
of Species,' 86; its success, 112; second edition, 114; variation of
animals and plants, 125; pangenesis, 126; fertilisation of orchids, 127;
'Descent of Man,' 132; later works, 155; last illness and death, 173;
character, 174; place in evolutionary movement, 177; outcome of his work,
192.

DARWIN, Erasmus, 10; his life, 20; appearance, 21; poems, ib.;
'Zoonomia', 21; 'Temple of Nature,' 25; his marriages, 25; on descent of
man, 133; on sexual selection, 146

Darwin, Erasmus, the younger, 34
Darwin, Robert, 20
Darwin, Robert Waring, 25, 26; his home, 31
De Candolle, 63
Down House, Darwin settles at, 65
Du Chaillu, 134

EARTHWORMS, 66, 168
Edgeworth, 25
Evolution, general theory of, 177

FILHOL, 168
Fiske, Prof., 58; on natural selection, 130
Fitzroy, Captain, 38
Fuegians, 51

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, 52
Galton, Francis, 27
Gaudry, 168
Geology, rise of, 13; evolutionary aspect of, 180
Goethe, 9, 12; on animal origin of man, 133
Gorilla, 134
Gray, Asa, 78, 124

HAECKEL, letter to, 67; 'History of Creation,' 124; on sexual selection, 151
Henslow, Prof., 35; recommends Darwin to Capt. Fitzroy, 38; at Oxford, 118
Herbert, Dean, 18
Herschel, Sir Wm., 15
Holland, Sir Henry, 27
Hooker, Sir Joseph, 74; on catasetum, 78; accepts Darwinism, 117;
publishes his 'Flora of Australia,' ib.
Horner, Leonard, 17
Humboldt, 33
Huxley, Prof., lecture at Royal Institution, 117; 'Man's Place in
Nature,' 122; on coming of age of 'Origin of Species,' 166

JUSSIEU, 63

KANT, nebular hypothesis, 15
Knight's law, 159
Kölreuter, 159

LAMARCK, 10; Darwin's reading of, 47; on descent of man, 133
Laplace, nebular hypothesis, 15
Lecoq, 18
Linnæus, 6; his artificial system, 63
Lyell, 14, 64; 'Principles of Geology,' 69; extract from letters, 78;
anticipations of natural selection, 99; slow acceptance of Darwinism,
119; 'Antiquity of Man,' 120

MALTHUS, 15; influence on Darwin, 50, 67, 74, 94
Matthew, Patrick, 18; extracts from, 82
Mimicry, 79
Monte Video, Darwin at, 46
Mould, formation of, 66
Mount, the, 31
Müller, Fritz, 124
Müller, Hermann, 124
Murchison, 14

'NATURALIST on the Amazons,' 79
'Naturalist's Voyage round the World' published, 59
Natural system, 63
Nebular hypothesis, 15, 179
New Zealand, Darwin at, 54

OKEN, 17
'Origin of Species,' first planned, 60; projected, 78; published, 86;
analysis of, 89; its success, 112; second edition, 114
Owen, Sir R., 33, 59; on types, 78

PANGENESIS, 126
'Philosophie Zoologique,' 12
Population, Malthus's essay on, 16, 51
Powell, Baden-, 78
'Physiological Units,' 126
Psychology, evolution in, 183

RAFINESQUE, 69
Rio Janeiro, Darwin at, 45

ST. HILAIRE, Geoffroy, 9; the younger, 77
St. Paul's Rocks, 43
Sexual selection, first glimpse of, 45; Darwin's theory of, 144
Smith, William, 13
Sociology, 183
Spencer, Herbert, 17; on 'Vestiges of Creation,' 72; essay in the
'Leader,' 77; 'Principles of Psychology,' ib.; essay in
'Westminster Review,' 84; extracts from 'Leader' essay, 88; accepts
Darwin's theory, 118; 'Principles of Biology,' ib.; 'Physiological
Units,' 126; theory of evolution, 191
Sprengel, 103, 158

THOMPSON, Allen, 163
Treviranus, 17
Tucutuco, 47
Tyndall, Prof., 163

'VESTIGES of Creation,' 18; criticism of, 70
Von Baer, 18
Von Buch, 18

WALLACE, Alfred Russel, 18; goes to Brazil, 79; publishes his travels, 80;
in Malay archipelago, ib.; discovers natural selection, ib.;
paper at Linnean Society, 81; on sexual selection, 153
Wedgwood, Emma, 65
Wedgwood, Hensleigh, 27
Wedgwood, Josiah, 27, 28
Wedgwood, Susannah, 27
Wells, Dr., anticipates natural selection, 81
White, Gilbert, on worms, 169
Wollaston, 18
Worms, action of, 66, 168
Wright, Chauncey, 124

'ZOONOMIA,' Erasmus Darwin's, 22