xii] OF EVOLUTION 159 



attack, to which his son has alluded, as being the 

 prelude to the end 153 , had occurred during this visit 

 to town ; and he intimated to me that he knew his 

 heart was seriously affected. Never shall I forget 

 how, seeing my concern, he insisted on accompanying 

 me to the door, and how, with the ever kindly smile 

 on his countenance, he held my hand in a prolonged 

 grasp, that I sadly felt might perhaps be the last. 

 And so it proved. 



And now all the world is united in the conviction 

 which Darwin so modestly expressed concerning his 

 own career, 'I believe that I have acted rightly in 

 steadily following and devoting myself to science ! ' 



For has not that devotion resulted in a complete 

 reform of the Natural-History Sciences ! The doctrine 

 of the ' immutability of species ' like that of ' Catas- 

 trophism ' in the inorganic world has been eliminated 

 from the Biological sciences by Darwin, through his 

 steadily following the clues found by him during his 

 South American travels; and continuity is now as 

 much the accepted creed of botanists and zoologists 

 as it is of geologists. As a result of the labours of 

 Darwin, new lines of thought have been opened out, 

 fresh fields of investigation discovered, and the 

 infinite variety among living things has acquired 

 a grander aspect and a special significance. Very 

 justly, then, has Darwin been universally acclaimed 

 as ' the Newton of Natural History.' 



