CHARLES DARWIN. 455 



ever novel subjects for comment. The technical term which he choso 

 for a designation of his theory, and several of the phrases originated 

 in explanation of it only twenty-five years ago, have already been 

 engrafted into his mother tongue, and even into other languages, and 

 are turned to use in common as well as in philosophical discourse, 

 without sense of strangeness. 



Wonderful indeed is the difference between the reception accorded 

 to Darwin and that met with by his predecessor, Lamarck. But a 

 good deal has happened since Lamarck's day ; wide fields of evidence 

 were open to Darwin which were wholly unknown to his forerunner ; 

 and the time had come when the subject of the origin and connexion 

 of living forms could be taken up as a research rather than as a specu- 

 lation. Pliilosophizers on evolution have not been rare ; but Darwin 

 was not one of them. He was a scientific investigator, — a philoso- 

 pher, if you please, but one of the type of Galileo. Indeed very much 

 what Galileo was to physical science in his time, Darwin is to bio- 

 logical science in ours. This without reference to the fact that the 

 writings of both conflicted with similar prepossessions ; and that the 

 Darwinian theory, legitimately considered, bids fair to be placed in 

 this respect upon the same footing with the Copernican system. 



An English poet wrote that he awoke one morning and found him- 

 self famous. When this happened to Darwin, it was a genuine sur- 

 prise. Although he had addressed himself simply to scientific men, 

 and had no thought of arguing his case before a popular tribunal, yet 

 " The Origin of Species " was too readable a book upon too sensitive 

 a topic to escape general perusal ; and this, indeed, must in some sort 

 have been anticipated. But the avidity with which the volume was 

 taken up, and the eagerness of popular discussion which ensued, were 

 viewed by the author, — as his letters at the time testify, — with a 

 sense of amused wonder at an unexpected and probably transient 

 notoriety. 



The theory he had developed was presented by a working naturalist 

 to his fellows, with confident belief that it would sooner or later wiu 

 acceptance from the younger and more observant of these. The reason 

 why these moderate expectations were much and so soon exceeded are 

 not far to seek, though they were not then obvious to the world in 

 general. Although mere speculations were mostly discountenanced 

 by the investigating naturalists of that day, yet their work and their 

 thoughts were, consciously or unconsciously, tending in the direction 

 of evolution. Even those who manfully rowed against the current 

 were more or less carried along with it, and some of them unwittingly 



