xi] ' OF EVOLUTION 147 



discoveries in palaeontology, that I often recall our 

 conversations in these later days, when so many in- 

 teresting forms of extinct animal and vegetable life 

 veritable ' missing links ' are being discovered in all 

 parts of the globe, and wish that he could have known 

 of them. They are indeed ' Facts for Darwin.' 



Very happy indeed was Charles Darwin in the last 

 years of his useful life, in returning to his oldest 'love* 

 geology. In studying the action of earthworms he 

 found a geological study in which his rare powers of 

 ingenious experimentation could be employed with 

 profit. His earliest published memoir had dealt with 

 the question, and for more than forty years with 

 dogged perseverance, he had laboured at it from time 

 to time. It was delightful to watch his pleasure as 

 he examined what was going on in the flower-pots 

 full of mould in his study, and when his book was 

 published and favourably received, he rejoiced in 

 it as 'the child of his old age 144 .' 



Charles Darwin's death took place rather more 

 than twenty-two years after the publication of the 

 Origin of Species. Before he passed away, he had 

 the satisfaction of knowing that the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion had come to be mainly through his own great 

 efforts the accepted creed of all naturalists and that 

 even for the world at large it had lost its imaginary 

 terrors. As Huxley wrote a few days after our sad 

 loss, 'None have fought better, and none have been 



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