CHARLES DARWIN. 81 



deeply engaged upon the self-same problem. Lyell and Horner 

 were in alternate fits doubting and debating. Herbert Spencer had 

 already frankly accepted the new idea with the profound conviction 

 of d priori reasoning. Agassiz was hesitating and raising diffi- 

 culties. Treviranus was ardently proclaiming his unflinching 

 adhesion. Oken was spinning in metaphysical Germany his 

 fanciful parodies of the Lamarckian hypothesis. Among the 

 depths of Brazilian forests Bates was reading the story of evo- 

 lution on the gauze-like wings of tropical butterflies. Under the 

 scanty shade of Malyan palm-trees Wallace was independently 

 spelling out in rude outline the very theory of survival of the fittest 

 which Charles Darwin himself was simultaneously perfecting and 

 polishing among the memoirs and pamphlets of his English study. 

 Wollaston, in Madeira, was pointing out the strange adaptations of 

 the curious local snails and beetles. Von Buch, in the Canaries, 

 was coming to the conclusion that varieties may be slowly changed 

 into permanent species. Lecoq and Von Baer were gradually 

 arriving, one by the botanical route, the other by the embryo- 

 logical, at the same opinion. Robert Chambers published in 

 1844 his ' Vestiges of Creation,' in which Lamarck's theory was 

 impressed and popularised under a somewhat spoilt and mistaken 

 form. It was not till 1859 that the first edition of the ' Origin of 

 Species ' burst like a thunderbolt upon the astonished world of 

 unprepared and unscientific thinkers." 



Having thus attempted to show you something of the man and 

 his antecedents, and briefly indicated the general position of the 

 world of science into which he came, I wish in the time remaining 

 to me to place before you quite simply, and in outline only, a 

 sketch of the wondrous work Darwin did in the various sciences 

 during those 40 years of retirement in Down House. I purpose, in 

 order to do this, to name the volumes and to point out the general 

 drift of each in relation to the Science with which it is specially 

 concerned. 



Geology. — In this science Darwin's work has exercised at least 

 as great an influence as that of any man of his age. Besides the 

 papers already referred to as having been read at the meetings of 

 the Geological Society, he issued three volumes dealing with the 

 geology of the Beagle voyage. In 1842 appeared the first, The 



