2 5 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



living things, which was almost universal five-and-twenty years ago, 

 was only equaled in arbitrariness, artificiality, and absurdity by the 

 celebrated theory of Epicycles, which caused Alfonso of Castile to 

 exclaim, " If God had asked my advice when he created the world, I 

 should have managed things much better." 



" Afflavit Darwinius et dissipata est" would, alluding to the above- 

 mentioned theory, be a fitting inscription for a medal in honor of the 

 " Origin of Species." For now all things were seen to be due to the 

 quiet development of a few simple germs ; graduated days of creation 

 gave place to one day on which matter in motion was created ; and or- 

 ganic suitability was replaced by a mechanical process, for as such we 

 may look on natural selection, and now for the first time man took 

 his proper place at the head of his brethren. 



We may compare Copernicus's student-days at Bologna with Dar- 

 win's voyage in the Beagle, and his retired life at Frauenburg with 

 Darwin's in his Kentish home, up to the time when the appearance of 

 Mr. "Wallace's work caused him to break his long silence. Here, hap- 

 pily for Darwin, the parallel ends. Many circumstances combined in 

 Darwin's case to render his task easier and insure his ultimate tri- 

 umph. Botany and zoology, morphology, the theory of evolution, and 

 the study of the geographical distribution of plants and animals, had 

 advanced far enough to allow of general conclusions being drawn from 

 them ; Lyell's sound sense had freed geology from the hypotheses 

 which disfigured it, and introduced the idea of uniformity into science. 

 The doctrine of the conservation of energy had been put on a new 

 basis, and extended so that in combination with astronomical observa- 

 tion it gave rise to entirely new views of the history and duration of 

 the universe. The doctrine of vital energy had been proved to be un- 

 tenable on closer investigation. An unusually dry season had some 

 years earlier led to the discovery of the so-called lake-dwellings in the 

 bed of one of the Swiss lakes, whereby prehistoric research was quickly 

 extended and developed. Though many links are still missing, we 

 may fairly consider the knowledge of the existence of primeval man 

 as the beginning of the long-looked-for connection between him and 

 the anthropoids on the one hand, and between them both and their 

 common progenitors on the other. In a word, the time had come for 

 the publication of the " Descent of Man " ; that is why an opinion on 

 the nature of man, which differs from all former ones fully as much 

 as the system of Copernicus, of which it is the complement, differs 

 from that of Ptolemy, found such ready and general acceptance. 



How different was the fate of Copernicus ! " Copernicus," says 

 Poggendorff, " is, and will ever remain, a brilliant star in the firma- 

 ment of science ; but he rose at a time when the horizon was almost 

 entirely obscured by the mists of ignorance. . . . The Ptolemaic sys- 

 tem was too ancient and too much venerated to be easily displaced." 

 Copernicus's teaching met with but scant appreciation for the first 



