[1880]
Many of you will be familiar with the aspect of this small green-covered book. It is a copy of the first edition of the "Origin of Species," and bears the date of its production--the 1st of October 1859. Only a few months, therefore, are needed to complete the full tale of twenty-one years since its birthday.
Those whose memories carry them back to this time will remember that the infant was remarkably lively, and that a great number of excellent persons mistook its manifestations of a vigorous individuality for mere naughtiness; in fact there was a very pretty turmoil about its cradle. My recollections of the period are particularly vivid, for, having conceived a tender affection for a child of what appeared to me to be such remarkable promise, I acted for some time in the capacity of a sort of under-nurse, and thus came in for my share of the storms which threatened the very life of the young creature. For some years it was undoubtedly warm work; but considering how exceedingly unpleasant the apparition of the newcomer must have been to those who did not fall in love with him at first sight, I think it is to the credit of our age that the war was not fiercer, and that the more bitter and unscrupulous forms of opposition died away as soon as they did.
I speak of this period as of something past and gone, possessing merely an historical, I had almost said an antiquarian interest. For, during the second decade of the existence of the "Origin of Species," opposition, though by no means dead, assumed a different aspect. On the part of all those who had any reason to respect themselves, it assumed a thoroughly respectful character. By this time, the dullest began to perceive that the child was not likely to perish of any congenital weakness or infantile disorder, but was growing into a stalwart personage, upon whom mere goody scoldings and threatenings with the birch-rod were quite thrown away.
In fact, those who have watched the progress of science within the last ten years will bear me out to the full, when I assert that there is no field of biological inquiry in which the influence of the "Origin of Species" is not traceable; the foremost men of science in every country are either avowed champions of its leading doctrines, or at any rate abstain from opposing them; a host of young and ardent investigators seek for and find inspiration and guidance in Mr. Darwin's great work; and the general doctrine of evolution, to one side of which it gives expression, obtains, in the phenomena of biology, a firm base of operations whence it may conduct its conquest of the whole realm of Nature.
History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions; and, as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the main doctrines of the "Origin of Species," with as little reflection, and it may be with as little justification, as so many of our contemporaries, twenty years ago, rejected them.
Against any such a consummation let us all devoutly pray; for the scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. Now the essence of the scientific spirit is criticism. It tells us that whenever a doctrine claims our assent we should reply, Take it if you can compel it. The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.
From this point of view, it appears to me that it would be but a poor way of celebrating the Coming of Age of the "Origin of Species," were I merely to dwell upon the facts, undoubted and remarkable as they are, of its far-reaching influence and of the great following of ardent disciples who are occupied in spreading and developing its doctrines. Mere insanities and inanities have before now swollen to portentous size in the course of twenty years. Let us rather ask this prodigious change in opinion to justify itself: let us inquire whether anything has happened since 1859, which will explain, on rational grounds, why so many are worshipping that which they burned, and burning that which they worshipped. It is only in this way that we shall acquire the means of judging whether the movement we have witnessed is a mere eddy of fashion, or truly one with the irreversible current of intellectual progress, and, like it, safe from retrogressive reaction.
Every belief is the product of two factors: the first is the state of the mind to which the evidence in favour of that belief is presented; and the second is the logical cogency of the evidence itself. In both these respects, the history of biological science during the last twenty years appears to me to afford an ample explanation of the change which has taken place; and a brief consideration of the salient events of that history will enable us to understand why, if the "Origin of Species" appeared now, it would meet with a very different reception from that which greeted it in 1859.
One-and-twenty years ago, in spite of the work commenced by Hutton and continued with rare skill and patience by Lyell, the dominant view of the past history of the earth was catastrophic. Great and sudden physical revolutions, wholesale creations and extinctions of living beings, were the ordinary machinery of the geological epic brought into fashion by the misapplied genius of Cuvier. It was gravely maintained and taught that the end of every geological epoch was signalised by a cataclysm, by which every living being on the globe was swept away, to be replaced by a brand-new creation when the world returned to quiescence. A scheme of nature which appeared to be modelled on the likeness of a succession of rubbers of whist, at the end of each of which the players upset the table and called for a new pack, did not seem to shock anybody.
I may be wrong, but I doubt if, at the present time, there is a single responsible representative of these opinions left. The progress of scientific geology has elevated the fundamental principle of uniformitarianism, that the explanation of the past is to be sought in the study of the present, into the position of an axiom; and the wild speculations of the catastrophists, to which we all listened with respect a quarter of a century ago, would hardly find a single patient hearer at the present day. No physical geologist now dreams of seeking, outside the range of known natural causes, for the explanation of anything that happened millions of years ago, any more than he would be guilty of the like absurdity in regard to current events.
The effect of this change of opinion upon biological speculation is obvious. For, if there have been no periodical general physical catastrophes, what brought about the assumed general extinctions and re-creations of life which are the corresponding biological catastrophes? And, if no such interruptions of the ordinary course of nature have taken place in the organic, any more than in the inorganic, world, what alternative is there to the admission of evolution?
The doctrine of evolution in biology is the necessary result of the logical application of the principles of uniformitarianism to the phenomena of life. Darwin is the natural successor of Hutton and Lyell, and the "Origin of Species" the logical sequence of the "Principles of Geology."
The fundamental doctrine of the "Origin of Species," as of all forms of the theory of evolution applied to biology, is "that the innumerable species, genera, and families of organic beings with which the world is peopled have all descended, each within its own class or group, from common parents, and have all been modified in the course of descent." [*]
And, in view of the facts of geology, it follows that all living animals and plants "are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch." [*]
It is an obvious consequence of this theory of descent with modification, as it is sometimes called, that all plants and animals, however different they may now be, must, at one time or other, have been connected by direct or indirect intermediate gradations, and that the appearance of isolation presented by various groups of organic beings must be unreal.
No part of Mr. Darwin's work ran more directly counter to the prepossessions of naturalists twenty years ago than this. And such prepossessions were very excusable, for there was undoubtedly a great deal to be said, at that time, in favour of the fixity of species and of the existence of great breaks, which there was no obvious or probable means of filling up, between various groups of organic beings.
For various reasons, scientific and unscientific, much had been made of the hiatus between man and the rest of the higher mammalia, and it is no wonder that issue was first joined on this part of the controversy. I have no wish to revive past and happily forgotten controversies; but I must state the simple fact that the distinctions in the cerebral and other characters, which were so hotly affirmed to separate man from all other animals in 1860, have all been demonstrated to be non-existent, and that the contrary doctrine is now universally accepted and taught.
But there were other cases in which the wide structural gaps asserted to exist between one group of animals and another were by no means fictitious; and, when such structural breaks were real, Mr. Darwin could account for them only by supposing that the intermediate forms which once existed had become extinct. In a remarkable passage he says--
"We may thus account even for the distinctness of whole classes from each other--for instance, of birds from all other vertebrate animals--by the belief that many animal forms of life have been utterly lost, through which the early progenitors of birds were formerly connected with the early progenitors of the other vertebrate classes." [*] Adverse criticism made merry over such suggestions as these. Of course it was easy to get out of the difficulty by supposing extinction; but where was the slightest evidence that such intermediate forms between birds and reptiles as the hypothesis required ever existed? And then probably followed a tirade upon this terrible forsaking of the paths of "Baconian induction."
But the progress of knowledge has justified Mr. Darwin to an extent which could hardly have been anticipated. In 1862, the specimen of Archæopteryx, which, until the last two or three years, has remained unique, was discovered; and it is an animal which, in its feathers and the greater part of its organisation, is a veritable bird, while, in other parts, it is as distinctly reptilian.
In 1868, I had the honour of bringing under your notice, in this theatre, the results of investigations made, up to that time, into the anatomical characters of certain ancient reptiles, which showed the nature of the modifications in virtue of which the type of the quadrupedal reptile passed into that of a bipedal bird; and abundant confirmatory evidence of the justice of the conclusions which I then laid before you has since come to light.
In 1875, the discovery of the toothed birds of the cretaceous formation in North America by Professor Marsh completed the series of transitional forms between birds and reptiles, and removed Mr. Darwin's proposition that "many animal forms of life have been utterly lost, through which the early progenitors of birds were formerly connected with the early progenitors of the other vertebrate classes," from the region of hypothesis to that of demonstrable fact.
In 1859, there appeared to be a very sharp and clear hiatus between vertebrated and invertebrated animals, not only in their structure, but, what was more important, in their development. I do not think that we even yet know the precise links of connection between the two; but the investigations of Kowalewsky and others upon the development of Amphioxus and of the Tunicata prove, beyond a doubt, that the differences which were supposed to constitute a barrier between the two are non-existent. There is no longer any difficulty in understanding how the vertebrate type may have arisen from the invertebrate, though the full proof of the manner in which the transition was actually effected may still be lacking.
Again, in 1859, there appeared to be a no less sharp separation between the two great groups of flowering and flowerless plants. It is only subsequently that the series of remarkable investigations inaugurated by Hofmeister has brought to light the extraordinary and altogether unexpected modifications of the reproductive apparatus in the Lycopodiaceæ, the Rhizocarpeæ, and the Gymnospermeæ, by which the ferns and the mosses are gradually connected with the Phanerogamic division of the vegetable world.
So, again, it is only since 1859 that we have acquired that wealth of knowledge of the lowest forms of life which demonstrates the futility of any attempt to separate the lowest plants from the lowest animals, and shows that the two kingdoms of living nature have a common borderland which belongs to both, or to neither.
Thus it will be observed that the whole tendency of biological investigation, since 1859, has been in the direction of removing the difficulties which the apparent breaks in the series created at that time; and the recognition of gradation is the first step towards the acceptance of evolution.
As another great factor in bringing about the change of opinion which has taken place among naturalists, I count the astonishing progress which has been made in the study of embryology. Twenty years ago, not only were we devoid of any accurate knowledge of the mode of development of many groups of animals and plants, but the methods of investigation were rude and imperfect. At the present time, there is no important group of organic beings the development of which has not been carefully studied; and the modern methods of hardening and section-making enable the embryologist to determine the nature of the process, in each case, with a degree of minuteness and accuracy which is truly astonishing to those whose memories carry them back to the beginnings of modern histology. And the results of these embryological investigations are in complete harmony with the requirements of the doctrine of evolution. The first beginnings of all the higher forms of animal life are similar, and however diverse their adult conditions, they start from a common foundation. Moreover, the process of development of the animal or the plant from its primary egg, or germ, is a true process of evolution--a progress from almost formless to more or less highly organised matter, in virtue of the properties inherent in that matter.
To those who are familiar with the process of development, all a priori objections to the doctrine of biological evolution appear childish. Any one who has watched the gradual formation of a complicated animal from the protoplasmic mass, which constitutes the essential element of a frog's or a hen's egg, has had under his eyes sufficient evidence that a similar evolution of the whole animal world from the like foundation is, at any rate, possible.
Yet another product of investigation has largely contributed to the removal of the objections to the doctrine of evolution current in 1859. It is the proof afforded by successive discoveries that Mr. Darwin did not over-estimate the imperfection of the geological record. No more striking illustration of this is needed than a comparison of our knowledge of the mammalian fauna of the Tertiary epoch in 1859 with its present condition. M. Gaudry's researches on the fossils of Pikermi were published in 1868, those of Messrs. Leidy, Marsh, and Cope, on the fossils of the Western Territories of America, have appeared almost wholly since 1870, those of M. Filhol on the phosphorites of Quercy in 1878. The general effect of these investigations has been to introduce to us a multitude of extinct animals, the existence of which was previously hardly suspected; just as if zoologists were to become acquainted with a country, hitherto unknown, as rich in novel forms of life as Brazil or South Africa once were to Europeans. Indeed, the fossil fauna of the Western Territories of America bid fair to exceed in interest and importance all other known Tertiary deposits put together; and yet, with the exception of the case of the American tertiaries, these investigations have extended over very limited areas; and, at Pikermi, were confined to an extremely small space.
Such appear to me to be the chief events in the history of the progress of knowledge during the last twenty years, which account for the changed feeling with which the doctrine of evolution is at present regarded by those who have followed the advance of biological science, in respect of those problems which bear indirectly upon that doctrine.
But all this remains mere secondary evidence. It may remove dissent, but it does not compel assent. Primary and direct evidence in favour of evolution can be furnished only by palæontology. The geological record, so soon as it approaches completeness, must, when properly questioned, yield either an affirmative or a negative answer: if evolution has taken place, there will its mark be left; if it has not taken place, there will lie its refutation.
What was the state of matters in 1859? Let us hear Mr. Darwin, who may be trusted always to state the case against himself as strongly as possible.
"On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude of connecting links between the living and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each successive period between the extinct and still older species, why is not every geological formation charged with such links? Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of life? We meet with no such evidence, and this is the most obvious and plausible of the many objections which may be urged against my theory." [*]
Nothing could have been more useful to the opposition than this characteristically candid avowal, twisted as it immediately was into an admission that the writer's views were contradicted by the facts of palæontology. But, in fact, Mr. Darwin made no such admission. What he says in effect is, not that palæontological evidence is against him, but that it is not distinctly in his favour; and, without attempting to attenuate the fact, he accounts for it by the scantiness and the imperfection of that evidence.
What is the state of the case now, when, as we have seen, the amount of our knowledge respecting the mammalia of the Tertiary epoch is increased fifty-fold, and in some directions even approaches completeness?
Simply this, that, if the doctrine of evolution had not existed, palaeontologists must have invented it, so irresistibly is it forced upon the mind by the study of the remains of the Tertiary mammalia which have been brought to light since 1859.
Among the fossils of Pikermi, Gaudry found the successive stages by which the ancient civets passed into the more modern hyænas; through the Tertiary deposits of Western America, Marsh tracked the successive forms by which the ancient stock of the horse has passed into its present form; and innumerable less complete indications of the mode of evolution of other groups of the higher mammalia have been obtained. In the remarkable memoir on the phosphorites of Quercy, to which I have referred, M. Filhol describes no fewer than seventeen varieties of the genus Cynodictis, which fill up all the interval between the viverine animals and the bear-like dog Amphicyon; nor do I know any solid ground of objection to the supposition that, in this Cynodictis-Amphicyon group, we have the stock whence all the Viveridæ, Felidæ, Hyænidæ, Canidæ, and perhaps the Procyonidæ and Ursidæ, of the present fauna have been evolved. On the contrary, there is a great deal to be said in favour.
In the course of summing up his results, M. Filhol observes:--
"During the epoch of the phosphorites, great changes took place in animal forms, and almost the same types as those which now exist became defined from one another.
"Under the influence of natural conditions of which we have no exact knowledge, though traces of them are discoverable, species have been modified in a thousand ways: races have arisen which, becoming fixed, have thus produced a corresponding number of secondary species."
In 1859, language of which this is an unintentional paraphrase, occurring in the "Origin of Species," was scouted as wild speculation; at present, it is a sober statement of the conclusions to which an acute and critically-minded investigator is led by large and patient study of the facts of palæontology. I venture to repeat what I have said before, that so far as the animal world is concerned, evolution is no longer a speculation, but a statement of historical fact. It takes its place alongside of those accepted truths which must be reckoned with by philosophers of all schools.
Thus when, on the first day of October next, "The Origin of Species" comes of age, the promise of its youth will be amply fulfilled; and we shall be prepared to congratulate the venerated author of the book, not only that the greatness of his achievement and its enduring influence upon the progress of knowledge have won him a place beside our Harvey; but, still more, that, like Harvey, he has lived long enough to outlast detraction and opposition, and to see the stone that the builders rejected become the head-stone of the corner.
[Nature, April 27th, 1882]
Very few, even among those who have taken the keenest interest in the progress of the revolution in natural knowledge set afoot by the publication of "The Origin of Species," and who have watched, not without astonishment, the rapid and complete change which has been effected both inside and outside the boundaries of the scientific world in the attitude of men's minds towards the doctrines which are expounded in that great work, can have been prepared for the extraordinary manifestation of affectionate regard for the man, and of profound reverence for the philosopher, which followed the announcement, on Thursday last, of the death of Mr. Darwin.
Not only in these islands, where so many have felt the fascination of personal contact with an intellect which had no superior, and with a character which was even nobler than the intellect; but, in all parts of the civilised world, it would seem that those whose business it is to feel the pulse of nations and to know what interests the masses of mankind, were well aware that thousands of their readers would think the world the poorer for Darwin's death, and would dwell with eager interest upon every incident of his history. In France, in Germany, in Austro-Hungary, in Italy, in the United States, writers of all shades of opinion, for once unanimous, have paid a willing tribute to the worth of our great countryman, ignored in life by the official representatives of the kingdom, but laid in death among his peers in Westminster Abbey by the will of the intelligence of the nation.
It is not for us to allude to the sacred sorrows of the bereaved home at Down; but it is no secret that, outside that domestic group, there are many to whom Mr. Darwin's death is a wholly irreparable loss. And this not merely because of his wonderfully genial, simple, and generous nature; his cheerful and animated conversation, and the infinite variety and accuracy of his information; but because the more one knew of him, the more he seemed the incorporated ideal of a man of science. Acute as were his reasoning powers, vast as was his knowledge, marvellous as was his tenacious industry, under physical difficulties which would have converted nine men out of ten into aimless invalids; it was not these qualities, great as they were, which impressed those who were admitted to his intimacy with involuntary veneration, but a certain intense and almost passionate honesty by which all his thoughts and actions were irradiated, as by a central fire.
It was this rarest and greatest of endowments which kept his vivid imagination and great speculative powers within due bounds; which compelled him to undertake the prodigious labours of original investigation and of reading, upon which his published works are based; which made him accept criticisms and suggestions from anybody and everybody, not only without impatience, but with expressions of gratitude sometimes almost comically in excess of their value; which led him to allow neither himself nor others to be deceived by phrases, and to spare neither time nor pains in order to obtain clear and distinct ideas upon every topic with which he occupied himself.
One could not converse with Darwin without being reminded of Socrates. There was the same desire to find some one wiser than himself; the same belief in the sovereignty of reason; the same ready humour; the same sympathetic interest in all the ways and works of men. But instead of turning away from the problems of Nature as hopelessly insoluble, our modern philosopher devoted his whole life to attacking them in the spirit of Heraclitus and of Democritus, with results which are the substance of which their speculations were anticipatory shadows.
The due appreciation, or even enumeration, of these results is neither practicable nor desirable at this moment. There is a time for all things--a time for glorying in our ever-extending conquests over the realm of Nature, and a time for mourning over the heroes who have led us to victory.
None have fought better, and none have been more fortunate, than Charles Darwin. He found a great truth trodden underfoot, reviled by bigots, and ridiculed by all the world; he lived long enough to see it, chiefly by his own efforts, irrefragably established in science, inseparably incorporated with the common thoughts of men, and only hated and feared by those who would revile, but dare not. What shall a man desire more than this? Once more the image of Socrates rises unbidden, and the noble peroration of the "Apology" rings in our ears as if it were Charles Darwin's farewell:--
"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die and you to live. Which is the better, God only knows."
[June 9th, 1885]
Address by the President of the Royal Society, in the name of the Memorial Committee, on handing over the statue of Darwin to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, as representative of the Trustees of the British Museum.
YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS,--It is now three years since the announcement of the death of our famous countryman, Charles Darwin, gave rise to a manifestation of public feeling, not only in these realms, but throughout the civilised world, which, if I mistake not, is without precedent in the modest annals of scientific biography.
The causes of this deep and wide outburst of emotion are not far to seek. We had lost one of these rare ministers and interpreters of Nature whose names mark epochs in the advance of natural knowledge. For, whatever be the ultimate verdict of posterity upon this or that opinion which Mr. Darwin has propounded; whatever adumbrations or anticipations of his doctrines may be found in the writings of his predecessors; the broad fact remains that, since the publication and by reason of the publication, of "The Origin of Species" the fundamental conceptions and the aims of the students of living Nature have been completely changed. From that work has sprung a great renewal, a true "instauratio magna" of the zoological and botanical sciences.
But the impulse thus given to scientific thought rapidly spread beyond the ordinarily recognised limits of biology. Psychology, Ethics, Cosmology were stirred to their foundations, and the "Origin of Species" proved itself to be the fixed point which the general doctrine of evolution needed in order to move the world. "Darwinism," in one form or another, sometimes strangely distorted and mutilated, became an everyday topic of men's speech, the object of an abundance both of vituperation and of praise, more often than of serious study.
It is curious now to remember how largely, at first, the objectors predominated; but considering the usual fate of new views, it is still more curious to consider for how short a time the phase of vehement opposition lasted. Before twenty years had passed, not only had the importance of Mr. Darwin's work been fully recognised, but the world had discerned the simple, earnest, generous character of the man, that shone through every page of his writings.
I imagine that reflections such as these swept through the minds alike of loving friends and of honourable antagonists when Mr. Darwin died; and that they were at one in the desire to honour the memory of the man who, without fear and without reproach, had successfully fought the hardest intellectual battle of these days.
It was in satisfaction of these just and generous impulses that our great naturalist's remains were deposited in Westminster Abbey; and that, immediately afterwards, a public meeting, presided over by my lamented predecessor, Mr. Spottiswoode, was held in the rooms of the Royal Society, for the purpose of considering what further step should be taken towards the same end.
It was resolved to invite subscriptions, with the view of erecting a statue of Mr. Darwin in some suitable locality; and to devote any surplus to the advancement of the biological sciences.
Contributions at once flowed in from Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, and the British Colonies, no less than from all parts of the three kingdoms; and they came from all classes of the community. To mention one interesting case, Sweden sent in 2296 subscriptions "from all sorts of people," as the distinguished man of science who transmitted them wrote, "from the bishop to the seamstress, and in sums from five pounds to two pence."
The Executive Committee has thus been enabled to carry out the objects proposed. A "Darwin Fund" has been created, which is to be held in trust by the Royal Society, and is to be employed in the promotion of biological research.
The execution of the statue was entrusted to Mr. Boehm; and I think that those who had the good fortune to know Mr. Darwin personally will admire the power of artistic divination which has enabled the sculptor to place before us so very characteristic a likeness of one whom he had not seen.
It appeared to the Committee that, whether they regarded Mr. Darwin's career or the requirements of a work of art, no site could be so appropriate as this great hall, and they applied to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to erect it in its present position.
That permission was most cordially granted, and I am desired to tender the best thanks of the Committee to the Trustees for their willingness to accede to our wishes.
I also beg leave to offer the expression of our gratitude to your Royal Highness for kindly consenting to represent the Trustees to-day. It only remains for me, your Royal Highness, my Lords and Gentlemen, Trustees of the British Museum, in the name of the Darwin Memorial Committee, to request you to accept this statue of Charles Darwin.
We do not make this request for the mere sake of perpetuating a memory; for so long as men occupy themselves with the pursuit of truth, the name of Darwin runs no more risk of oblivion than does that of Copernicus, or that of Harvey.
Nor, most assuredly, do we ask you to preserve the statue in its cynosural position in this entrance-hall of our National Museum of Natural History as evidence that Mr. Darwin's views have received your official sanction; for science does not recognise such sanctions, and commits suicide when it adopts a creed.
No; we beg you to cherish this Memorial as a symbol by which, as generation after generation of students of Nature enter yonder door, they shall be reminded of the ideal according to which they must shape their lives, if they would turn to the best account the opportunities offered by the great institution under your charge.
[1888]
Charles Robert Darwin was the fifth child and second son of Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood, and was born on the 12th February, 1809, at Shrewsbury, where his father was a physician in large practice.
Mrs. Robert Darwin died when her son Charles was only eight years old, and he hardly remembered her. A daughter of the famous Josiah Wedgwood, who created a new branch of the potter's art, and established the great works of Etruria, could hardly fail to transmit important mental and moral qualities to her children; and there is a solitary record of her direct influence in the story told by a schoolfellow, who remembers Charles Darwin "bringing a flower to school, and saying that his mother had taught him how, by looking at the inside of the blossom, the name of the plant could be discovered." (I., p. 28.) [*]
The theory that men of genius derive their qualities from their mothers, however, can hardly derive support from Charles Darwin's case, in the face of the patent influence of his paternal forefathers. Dr. Darwin, indeed, though a man of marked individuality of character, a quick and acute observer, with much practical sagacity, is said not to have had a scientific mind. But when his son adds that his father "formed a theory for almost everything that occurred" (I., p. 20), he indicates a highly probable source for that inability to refrain from forming an hypothesis on every subject which he confesses to be one of the leading characteristics of his own mind, some pages further on (I., p. 103). Dr. R. W. Darwin, again, was the third son of Erasmus Darwin, also a physician of great repute, who shared the intimacy of Watt and Priestley, and was widely known as the author of "Zoonomia," and other voluminous poetical and prose works which had a great vogue in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The celebrity which they enjoyed was in part due to the attractive style (at least according to the taste of that day) in which the author's extensive, though not very profound, acquaintance with natural phenomena was set forth; but in a still greater degree, probably, to the boldness of the speculative views, always ingenious and sometimes fantastic, in which he indulged. The conception of evolution set afoot by De Maillet and others, in the early part of the century, not only found a vigorous champion in Erasmus Darwin, but he propounded an hypothesis as to the manner in which the species of animals and plants have acquired their characters, which is identical in principle with that subsequently rendered famous by Lamarck.
That Charles Darwin's chief intellectual inheritance came to him from the paternal side, then, is hardly doubtful. But there is nothing to show that he was, to any sensible extent, directly influenced by his grandfather's biological work. He tells us that a perusal of the "Zoonomia" in early life produced no effect upon him, although he greatly admired it; and that, on reading it again, ten or fifteen years afterwards, he was much disappointed, "the proportion of speculation being so large to the facts given." But with his usual anxious candour he adds, "Nevertheless, it is probable that the hearing, rather early in life, such views maintained and praised, may have favoured my upholding them, in a different form, in my 'Origin of Species.'" (I., p. 38.) Erasmus Darwin was in fact an anticipator of Lamarck, and not of Charles Darwin; there is no trace in his works of the conceptions by the addition of which his grandson metamorphosed the theory of evolution as applied to living things and gave it a new foundation.
Charles Darwin's childhood and youth afforded no intimation that he would he, or do, anything out of the common run. In fact, the prognostications of the educational authorities into whose hands he first fell were most distinctly unfavourable; and they counted the only boy of original genius who is known to have come under their hands as no better than a dunce. The history of the educational experiments to which Darwin was subjected is curious, and not without a moral for the present generation. There were four of them, and three were failures. Yet it cannot be said that the materials on which the pedagogic powers operated were other than good. In his boyhood Darwin was strong, well-grown, and active, taking the keen delight in field sports and in every description of hard physical exercise which is natural to an English country-bred lad; and, in respect of things of the mind, he was neither apathetic, nor idle, nor one-sided. The "Autobiography" tells us that he "had much zeal for whatever interested" him, and he was interested in many and very diverse topics. He could work hard, and liked a complex subject better than an easy one. The "clear geometrical proofs" of Euclid delighted him. His interest in practical chemistry, carried out in an extemporised laboratory, in which he was permitted to assist by his elder brother, kept him late at work, and earned him the nickname of "gas" among his schoolfellows. And there could have been no insensibility to literature in one who, as a boy, could sit for hours reading Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, and Byron; who greatly admired some of the Odes of Horace; and who, in later years, on board the "Beagle," when only one book could be carried on an expedition, chose a volume of Milton for his companion.
Industry, intellectual interests, the capacity for taking pleasure in deductive reasoning, in observation, in experiment, no less than in the highest works of imagination: where these qualities are present any rational system of education should surely be able to make something of them. Unfortunately for Darwin, the Shrewsbury Grammar School, though good of its kind, was an institution of a type universally prevalent in this country half a century ago, and by no means extinct at the present day. The education given was "strictly classical," "especial attention" being "paid to verse-making," while all other subjects, except a little ancient geography and history, were ignored. Whether, as in some famous English schools at that date and much later, elementary arithmetic was also left out of sight does not appear; but the instruction in Euclid which gave Charles Darwin so much satisfaction was certainly supplied by a private tutor. That a boy, even in his leisure hours, should permit himself to be interested in any but book-learning seems to have been regarded as little better than an outrage by the head master, who thought it his duty to administer a public rebuke to young Darwin for wasting his time on such a contemptible subject as chemistry. English composition and literature, modern languages, modern history, modern geography, appear to have been considered to be as despicable as chemistry.
For seven long years Darwin got through his appointed tasks; construed without cribs, learned by rote whatever was demanded, and concocted his verses in approved schoolboy fashion. And the result, as it appeared to his mature judgment, was simply negative. "The school as a means of education to me was simply a blank." (I. p. 32.) On the other hand, the extraneous chemical exercises, which the head master treated so contumeliously, are gratefully spoken of as the "best part" of his education while at school. Such is the judgment of the scholar on the school; as might be expected, it has its counterpart in the judgment of the school on the scholar. The collective intelligence of the staff of Shrewsbury School could find nothing but dull mediocrity in Charles Darwin. The mind that found satisfaction in knowledge, but very little in mere learning; that could appreciate literature, but had no particular aptitude for grammatical exercises; appeared to the "strictly classical" pedagogue to be no mind at all. As a matter of fact, Darwin's school education left him ignorant of almost all the things which it would have been well for him to know, and untrained in all the things it would have been useful for him to be able to do, in after life. Drawing, practice in English composition, and instruction in the elements of the physical sciences, would not only have been infinitely valuable to him in reference to his future career, but would have furnished the discipline suited to his faculties, whatever that career might be. And a knowledge of French and German, especially the latter, would have removed from his path obstacles which he never fully overcame.
Thus, starved and stunted on the intellectual side, it is not surprising that Charles Darwin's energies were directed towards athletic amusements and sport, to such an extent, that even his kind and sagacious father could be exasperated into telling him that "he cared for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching." (I. p. 32.) It would be unfair to expect even the wisest of fathers to have foreseen that the shooting and the rat-catching, as training in the ways of quick observation and in physical endurance, would prove more valuable than the construing and verse-making to his son, whose attempt, at a later period of his Life, to persuade himself "that shooting was almost an intellectual employment: it required so much skill to judge where to find most game, and to hunt the dogs well" (I. p. 43), was by no means so sophistical as he seems to have been ready to admit.
In 1825, Dr. Darwin came to the very just conclusion that his son Charles would do no good by remaining at Shrewsbury School, and sent him to join his elder brother Erasmus, who was studying medicine at Edinburgh, with the intention that the younger son should also become a medical practitioner. Both sons, however, were well aware that their inheritance would relieve them from the urgency of the struggle for existence which most professional men have to face; and they seemed to have allowed their tastes, rather than the medical curriculum, to have guided their studies. Erasmus Darwin was debarred by constant ill-health from seeking the public distinction which his high intelligence and extensive knowledge would, under ordinary circumstances, have insured. He took no great interest in biological subjects, but his companionship must have had its influence on his brother. Still more was exerted by friends like Coldstream and Grant, both subsequently well-known zoologists (and the latter an enthusiastic Lamarckian), by whom Darwin was induced to interest himself in marine zoology. A notice of the ciliated germs of Flustra, communicated to the Plinian Society in 1826, was the first fruits of Darwin's half century of scientific work. Occasional attendance at the Wernerian Society brought him into relation with that excellent ornithologist the elder Macgillivray, and enabled him to see and hear Audubon. Moreover, he got lessons in bird-stuffing from a negro, who had accompanied the eccentric traveller Waterton in his wanderings, before settling in Edinburgh.
No doubt Darwin picked up a great deal of valuable knowledge during his two years' residence in Scotland; but it is equally clear that next to none of it came through the regular channels of academic education. Indeed, the influence of the Edinburgh professoriate appears to have been mainly negative, and in some cases deterrent; creating in his mind, not only a very low estimate of the value of lectures, but an antipathy to the subjects which had been the occasion of the boredom inflicted upon him by their instrumentality. With the exception of Hope, the Professor of Chemistry, Darwin found them all "intolerably dull." Forty years afterwards he writes of the lectures of the Professor of Materia Medica that they were "fearful to remember." The Professor of Anatomy made his lectures "as dull as he was himself," and he must have been very dull to have wrung from his victim the sharpest personal remark recorded as his. But the climax seems to have been attained by the Professor of Geology and Zoology, whose prælections were so "incredibly dull" that they produced in their hearer the somewhat rash determination never "to read a book on geology or in any way to study the science" so long as he lived. (I. p. 41.)
There is much reason to believe that the lectures in question were eminently qualified to produce the impression which they made; and there can be little doubt, that Darwin's conclusion that his time was better employed in reading than in listening to such lectures was a sound one. But it was particularly unfortunate that the personal and professorial dulness of the Professor of Anatomy, combined with Darwin's sensitiveness to the disagreeable concomitants of anatomical work, drove him away from the dissecting room. In after life, he justly recognised that this was an "irremediable evil" in reference to the pursuits he eventually adopted; indeed, it is marvellous that he succeeded in making up for his lack of anatomical discipline, so far as his work on the Cirripedes shows he did. And the neglect of anatomy had the further unfortunate result that it excluded him from the best opportunity of bringing himself into direct contact with the facts of nature which the University had to offer. In those days, almost the only practical scientific work accessible to students was anatomical, and the only laboratory at their disposal the dissecting room.
We may now console ourselves with the reflection that the partial evil was the general good. Darwin had already shown an aptitude for practical medicine (I. p. 37); and his subsequent career proved that he had the making of an excellent anatomist. Thus, though his horror of operations would probably have shut him off from surgery, there was nothing to prevent him (any more than the same peculiarity prevented his father) from passing successfully through the medical curriculum and becoming, like his father and grandfather, a successful physician, in which case "The Origin of Species" would not have been written. Darwin has jestingly alluded to the fact that the shape of his nose (to which Captain Fitzroy objected), nearly prevented his embarkation in the "Beagle"; it may be that the sensitiveness of that organ secured him for science.
At the end of two years' residence in Edinburgh it hardly needed Dr. Darwin's sagacity to conclude that a young man, who found nothing but dulness in professorial lucubrations, could not bring himself to endure a dissecting room, fled from operations, and did not need a profession as a means of livelihood, was hardly likely to distinguish himself as a student of medicine. He therefore made a new suggestion, proposing that his son should enter an English University and qualify for the ministry of the Church. Charles Darwin found the proposal agreeable, none the less, probably, that a good deal of natural history and a little shooting were by no means held, at that time, to be incompatible with the conscientious performance of the duties of a country clergyman. But it is characteristic of the man, that he asked time for consideration, in order that he might satisfy himself that he could sign the Thirty-nine Articles with a clear conscience. However, the study of "Pearson on the Creeds" and a few other books of divinity soon assured him that his religious opinions left nothing to be desired on the score of orthodoxy, and he acceded to his father's proposition.
The English University selected was Cambridge; but an unexpected obstacle arose from the fact that, within the two years which had elapsed, since the young man who had enjoyed seven years of the benefit of a strictly classical education had left school, he had forgotten almost everything he had learned there, "even to some few of the Greek letters." (I. p. 46.) Three months with a tutor, however, brought him back to the point of translating Homer and the Greek Testament "with moderate facility," and Charles Darwin commenced the third educational experiment of which he was the subject, and was entered on the books of Christ's College in October 1827. So far as the direct results of the academic training thus received are concerned, the English University was not more successful than the Scottish. "During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and as at school." (I. p. 46.) And yet, as before, there is ample evidence that this negative result cannot be put down to any native defect on the part of the scholar. Idle and dull young men, or even young men who being neither idle nor dull, are incapable of caring for anything but some hobby, do not devote themselves to the thorough study of Paley's "Moral Philosophy," and "Evidences of Christianity"; nor are their reminiscences of this particular portion of their studies expressed in terms such as the following: "The logic of this book [the 'Evidences'] and, as I may add, of his 'Natural Theology' gave me as much delight as did Euclid." (I. p. 47.)
The collector's instinct, strong in Darwin from his childhood, as is usually the case in great naturalists, turned itself in the direction of Insects during his residence at Cambridge. In childhood it had been damped by the moral scruples of a sister, as to the propriety of catching and killing insects for the mere sake of possessing them, but now it broke out afresh, and Darwin became an enthusiastic beetle collector. Oddly enough he took no scientific interest in beetles, not even troubling himself to make out their names; his delight lay in the capture of a species which turned out to be rare or new, and still more in finding his name, as captor, recorded in print. Evidently, this beetle-hunting hobby had little to do with science, but was mainly a new phase of the old and undiminished love of sport. In the intervals of beetle-catching, when shooting and hunting were not to be had, riding across country answered the purpose. These tastes naturally threw the young undergraduate among a set of men who preferred hard riding: to hard reading, and wasted the midnight oil upon other pursuits than that of academic distinction. A superficial observer might have had some grounds to fear that Dr. Darwin's wrathful prognosis might yet be verified. But if the eminently social tendencies of a vigorous and genial nature sought an outlet among a set of jovial sporting friends, there were other and no less strong proclivities which brought him into relation with associates of a very different stamp.
Though almost without ear and with a very defective memory for music, Darwin was so strongly and pleasurably affected by it that he became a member of a musical society; and an equal lack of natural capacity for drawing did not prevent him from studying good works of art with much care.
An acquaintance with even the rudiments of physical science was no part of the requirements for the ordinary Cambridge degree. But there were professors both of Geology and of Botany whose lectures were accessible to those who chose to attend them. The occupants of these chairs, in Darwin's time, were eminent men and also admirable lecturers in their widely different styles. The horror of geological lectures which Darwin had acquired at Edinburgh, unfortunately prevented him from going within reach of the fervid eloquence of Sedgwick; but he attended the botanical course, and though he paid no serious attention to the subject, he took great delight in the country excursions, which Henslow so well knew how to make both pleasant and instructive. The Botanical Professor was, in fact, a man of rare character and singularly extensive acquirements in all branches of natural history. It was his greatest pleasure to place his stores of knowledge at the disposal of the young men who gathered about him, and who found in him, not merely an encyclopedic teacher but a wise counsellor, and, in case of worthiness, a warm friend. Darwin's acquaintance with him soon ripened into a friendship which was terminated only by Henslow's death in 1861, when his quondam pupil gave touching expression to his sense of what he owed to one whom he calls (in one of his letters) his "dear old master in Natural History." (II. p. 217.) It was by Henslow's advice that Darwin was led to break the vow he had registered against making an acquaintance with geology; and it was through Henslow's good offices with Sedgwick that he obtained the opportunity of accompanying the Geological Professor on one of his excursions in Wales. He then received a certain amount of practical instruction in Geology, the value of which he subsequently warmly acknowledged. (I. p. 237.) In another direction, Henslow did him an immense, though not altogether intentional service, by recommending him to buy and study the recently published first volume of Lyell's "Principles." As an orthodox geologist of the then dominant catastrophic school, Henslow accompanied his recommendation with the admonition on no account to adopt Lyell's general views. But the warning fell on deaf ears, and it is hardly too much to say that Darwin's greatest work is the outcome of the unflinching application to Biology of the leading idea and the method applied in the "Principles" to geology. [*] Finally, it was through Henslow, and at his suggestion, that Darwin was offered the appointment to the "Beagle" as naturalist.
During the latter part of Darwin's residence at Cambridge the prospect of entering the Church, though the plan was never formally renounced, seems to have grown very shadowy. Humboldt's "Personal Narrative," and Herschel's "Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy," fell in his way and revealed to him his real vocation. The impression made by the former work was very strong. "My whole course of life," says Darwin in sending a message to Humboldt, "is due to having read and re-read, as a youth, his personal narrative." (I. p. 336.) The description of Teneriffe inspired Darwin with such a strong desire to visit the island, that he took some steps towards going there--inquiring about ships, and so on.
But, while this project was fermenting, Henslow, who had been asked to recommend a naturalist for Captain Fitzroy's projected expedition, at once thought of his pupil. In his letter of the 24th August, 1831, he says: "I have stated that I consider you to be the best qualified person I know of who is likely to undertake such a situation. I state this--not on the supposition of your being a finished naturalist, but as amply qualified for collecting, observing, and noting anything worthy to be noted in Natural History.... The voyage is to last two years, and if you take plenty of books with you, anything you please may be done." (I. p. 193.) The state of the case could not have been better put. Assuredly the young naturalist's theoretical and practical scientific training had gone no further than might suffice for the outfit of an intelligent collector and note-taker. He was fully conscious of the fact, and his ambition hardly rose above the hope that he should bring back materials for the scientific "lions" at home of sufficient excellence to prevent them from turning and rending him. (I. p. 248.)
But a fourth educational experiment was to be tried. This time Nature took him in hand herself and showed him the way by which, to borrow Henslow's prophetic phrase, "anything he pleased might be done."
The conditions of life presented by a ship-of-war of only 242 tons burthen, would not, primâ facie, appear to be so favourable to intellectual development as those offered by the cloistered retirement of Christ's College. Darwin had not even a cabin to himself; while, in addition to the hindrances and interruptions incidental to sea-life, which can be appreciated only by those who have had experience of them, sea-sickness came on whenever the little ship was "lively"; and, considering the circumstances of the cruise, that must have been her normal state. Nevertheless, Darwin found on board the "Beagle" that which neither the pedagogues of Shrewsbury, nor the professoriate of Edinburgh, nor the tutors of Cambridge had managed to give him. "I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first real training or education of my mind (I. p. 61);" and in a letter written as he was leaving England, he calls the voyage on which he was starting, with just insight, his "second life." (I. p. 214.) Happily for Darwin's education, the school time of the "Beagle" lasted five years instead of two; and the countries which the ship visited were singularly well fitted to provide him with object-lessons, on the nature of things, of the greatest value.
While at sea, he diligently collected, studied, and made copious notes upon the surface Fauna. But with no previous training in dissection, hardly any power of drawing, and next to no knowledge of comparative anatomy, his occupation with work of this kind--notwithstanding all his zeal and industry--resulted, for the most part, in a vast accumulation of useless manuscript. Some acquaintance with the marine Crustacea, observations on Planariæ and on the ubiquitous Sagitta, seem to have been the chief results of a great amount of labour in this direction.
It was otherwise with the terrestrial phenomena which came under the voyager's notice: and Geology very soon took her revenge for the scorn which the much-bored Edinburgh student had poured upon her. Three weeks after leaving England the ship touched land for the first time at St. Jago, in the Cape de Verd Islands, and Darwin found his attention vividly engaged by the volcanic phenomena and the signs of upheaval which the island presented. His geological studies had already indicated the direction in which a great deal might be done, beyond collecting; and it was while sitting beneath a low lava cliff on the shore of this island, that a sense of his real capability first dawned upon Darwin, and prompted the ambition to write a book on the geology of the various countries visited. (I. p. 66.) Even at this early date, Darwin must have thought much on geological topics, for he was already convinced of the superiority of Lyell's views to those entertained by the catastrophists [*]; and his subsequent study of the tertiary deposits and of the terraced gravel beds of South America was eminently fitted to strengthen that conviction. The letters from South America contain little reference to any scientific topic except geology; and even the theory of the formation of coral reefs was prompted by the evidence of extensive and gradual changes of level afforded by the geology of South America; "No other work of mine," he says, "was begun in so deductive a spirit as this; for the whole theory was thought out on the West Coast of South America, before I had seen a true coral reef. I had, therefore, only to verify and extend my views by a careful examination of living reefs." (I. p. 70.) In 1835, when starting from Lima for the Galapagos, he recommends his friend, W. D. Fox, to take up geology:--"There is so much larger a field for thought than in the other branches of Natural History. I am become a zealous disciple of Mr. Lyell's views, as made known in his admirable book. Geologising in South America, I am tempted to carry parts to a greater extent even than he does. Geology is a capital science to begin with, as it requires nothing but a little reading, thinking, and hammering." (I. p. 263.) The truth of the last statement, when it was written, is a curious mark of the subsequent progress of geology. Even so late as 1836, Darwin speaks of being "much more inclined for geology than the other branches of Natural History." (I. p. 275.)
At the end of the letter to Mr. Fox, however, a little doubt is expressed whether zoological studies might not, after all, have been more profitable; and an interesting passage in the "Autobiography" enables us to understand the origin of this hesitation.
"During the voyage of the 'Beagle' I had been deeply impressed by discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals covered with armour like that on the existing armadillos; secondly, by the manner in which closely-allied animals replace one another in proceeding southwards over the continent; and, thirdly, by the South American character of most of the productions of the Galapagos Archipelago, and, more especially, by the manner in which they differ slightly on each island of the group; some of the islands appearing to be very ancient in a geological sense.
"It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on the supposition that species gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that neither the action of the surrounding conditions, nor the will of the organisms (especially in the case of plants) could account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully adapted to their habits of life; for instance, a woodpecker or a tree-frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes. I had always been much struck by such adaptations, and until these could be explained it seemed to me almost useless to endeavour to prove by indirect evidence that species have been modified." (I. p. 82.)
The facts to which reference is here made were, without doubt, eminently fitted to attract the attention of a philosophical thinker; but, until the relations of the existing with the extinct species and of the species of the different geographical areas with one another, were determined with some exactness, they afforded but an unsafe foundation for speculation. It was not possible that this determination should have been effected before the return of the "Beagle" to England; and thus the date which Darwin (writing in 1837) assigns to the dawn of the new light which was rising in his mind becomes intelligible. [*]
"In July opened first note-book on Transmutation of Species. Had been greatly struck from about the month of previous March on character of South American fossils and species on Galapagos Archipelago. These facts (especially latter) origin of all my views." (I. p. 276.)
From March, 1837, then, Darwin, not without many misgivings and fluctuations of opinion, inclined towards transmutation as a provisional hypothesis. Three months afterwards he is hard at work collecting facts for the purpose of testing the hypothesis; and an almost apologetic passage in a letter to Lyell shows that, already, the attractions of biology are beginning to predominate over those of geology.
"I have lately been sadly tempted to be idle--[*] that is, as far as pure Geology is concerned--by the delightful number of new views which have been coming in thickly and steadily--on the classification and affinities and instincts of animals--bearing on the question of species. Note-book after note-book has been filled with facts which begin to group themselves clearly under sub-laws." (I. p. 298.)
The problem which was to be Darwin's chief subject of occupation for the rest of his life thus presented itself, at first, mainly under its distributional aspect. Why do species present certain relations in space and in time? Why are the animals and plants of the Galapagos Archipelago so like those of South America and yet different from them? Why are those of the several islets more or less different from one another? Why are the animals of the latest geological epoch in South America similar in facies to those which exist in the same region at the present day, and yet specifically or generically different?
The reply to these questions, which was almost universally received fifty years ago, was that animals and plants were created such as they are; and that their present distribution, at any rate so far as terrestrial organisms are concerned, has been effected by the migration of their ancestors from the region in which the ark stranded after the subsidence of the deluge. It is true that the geologists had drawn attention to a good many tolerably serious difficulties in the way of the diluvial part of this hypothesis, no less than to the supposition that the work of creation had occupied only a brief space of time. But even those, such as Lyell, who most strenuously argued in favour of the sufficiency of natural causes for the production of the phenomena of the inorganic world, held stoutly by the hypothesis of creation in the case of those of the world of life.
For persons who were unable to feel satisfied with the fashionable doctrine, there remained only two alternatives--the hypothesis of spontaneous generation, and that of descent with modification. The former was simply the creative hypothesis with the creator left out; the latter had already been propounded by De Maillet and Erasmus Darwin, among others; and, later, systematically expounded by Lamarck. But in the eyes of the naturalist of the "Beagle" (and, probably, in those of most sober thinkers), the advocates of transmutation had done the doctrine they expounded more harm than good.
Darwin's opinion of the scientific value of the "Zoonomia" has already been mentioned. His verdict on Lamarck is given in the following passage of a letter to Lyell (March, 1863):--
"Lastly, you refer repeatedly to my view as a modification of Lamarck's doctrine of development and progression. If this is your deliberate opinion there is nothing to be said, but it does not seem so to me. Plato, Buffon, my grandfather, before Lamarck and others, propounded the obvious view that if species were not created separately they must have descended from other species, and I can see nothing else in common between the "Origin" and Lamarck. I believe this way of putting the case is very injurious to its acceptance, as it implies necessary progression, and closely connects Wallace's and my views with what I consider, after two deliberate readings, as a wretched book, and one from which (I well remember to my surprise) I gained nothing."
"But," adds Darwin with a little touch of banter, "I know you rank it higher, which is curious, as it did not in the least shake your belief." (III. p. 14; see also p. 16, "to me it was an absolutely useless book.")
Unable to find any satisfactory theory of the process of descent with modification in the works of his predecessors, Darwin proceeded to lay the foundations of his own views independently; and he naturally turned, in the first place, to the only certainly known examples of descent with modification, namely, those which are presented by domestic animals and cultivated plants. He devoted himself to the study of these cases with a thoroughness to which none of his predecessors even remotely approximated; and he very soon had his reward in the discovery "that selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants." (I. p. 83.)