CHAPTER IX. 



THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE " ORIGIN" OF SPECIES." 



To give an account of the development of the chief work 

 of my father's life the Origin of Species it will be neces- 

 sary to return to an earlier date, and to weave into the story 

 letters and other material, purposely omitted from the chap- 

 ters dealing with the voyage and with his life at Down. 



To be able to estimate the greatness of the work, we 

 must know something of the state of knowledge on the spe- 

 cies question at the time when the germs of the Darwinian 

 theory were forming in my father's mind. 



For the brief sketch which I can here insert, I am large- 

 ly indebted to vol. ii., chapter v., of the Life and Letters 

 a discussion on the Reception of the Origin of Species which 

 Mr. Huxley was good enough to write for me, also to the 

 masterly obituary essay on my father, which the same writer 

 contributed to the Proceedings of the Royal Society.* 



Mr. Huxley has well said : f 



" To any one who studies the signs of the times, the 

 emergence of the philosophy of Evolution, in the attitude 

 of claimant to the throne of the world of thought, from the 

 limbo of hated and, as many hoped, forgotten things, is the 

 most portentous event of the nineteenth century." 



In the autobiographical chapter, my father has given an 

 account of his share in this great work : the present chapter 

 does little more than expand that story. 



Two questions naturally occur to one : (1) When and 

 how did Darwin become convinced that species are mutable? 

 How (that is to say) did he begin to believe in evolution ? 

 And (2) When and how did he conceive the manner in 

 which species are modified ; when did he begin to believe in 

 Natural Selection? 



The first question is the more difficult of the two to 



* Vol. xliv. No. 269. t Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 180. 



074) 



