x OBITUARY 275 



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. 1 



" In July opened first note-book on Transmuta- 

 tion of Species. Had been greatly struck from 

 about the month of previous March on character 

 of South American fossils and species on Gala- 

 pagos 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 facta for the purpose of test- 

 ing the hypothesis ; and an almost apologetic 

 passage in a letter to Lyell shows that, already, 

 the attractions of biology are beginning to pre- 

 dominate over those of geology. 



(( I have lately been sadly tempted to be idle 7 



1 I am indebted to Mr. F. Darwin for the knowledge of a 

 letter addressed by his father to Dr. Otto Zacharias in 1877 

 which contains the following paragraph, confirmatory of the 

 view expressed above : "When I was on board the Beagle, I 

 believed in the permanence of species, but, as far as I can 

 remember, vague doubts occasionally flitted across my mind. 

 On my return home in the autumn of 1836, I immediately began 

 to prepare my journal for publication, and then saw how many 

 facts indicated the common descent of species, so that in July, 

 1837, I opened a note-book to record any facts which might bear 

 on the question. But I did not become convinced that species 

 were mutable until, I think, two or three years had elapsed." 



" Darwin generally uses the word "idle" in a peculiar sense. 

 He means by it working hard at something he likes when he 



