166 CHARLES DARWIN. 



details of structure, and of the principles of classification displayed 

 in his ' Monograph of the Cirripedia,' clearly showed that he was 

 possessed of no ordinary powers of observation and of thought. 

 The philosophic caution, which was perhaps the most conspicuous 

 feature of Mr. Darwin's character, is shown by the fact that, 

 although the views which he afterwards promulgated with regard 

 to the 'Origin of Species' dawned upon him, and impressed his 

 mind with ever-increasing force, while arranging the materials 

 brought home from the ' Beagle,' it was not till 1859, when he was 

 fifty years old, that he first brought them publicly before the world. 

 The rapidity with which they were adopted by the leading naturalists 

 was no doubt due in large measure to this maturity, so different 

 from the rashness of the self-confident speculator. During the 

 last forty years of his life Darwin led the life of a country 

 gentleman amidst the chalk-hills of Kent, prompted thereto partly 

 by his love of the country and the natural bent of his disposition, 

 partly by the state of his health, which had suflered greatly and 

 permanently from the ' Beagle ' voyage ; rarely seen in public or at 

 any but the houses of his most intimate friends, but maintaining a 

 most active correspondence with his fellow-naturalists in all parts 

 of the world, and always ready with kindly words of sympathy and 

 encouragement for those younger workers who wrote to him for 

 advice or information. To all these his death is the loss of a valued 

 and honoured friend. What must it be to those who have been 

 closely and intimately associated with him during all these years ? 



Not only the practical work, but the literary activity of Darwin's 

 retirement was amazing; and as all his later works, with the 

 exception of ' The Descent of Man' (1871), 'The Emotions in Man 

 and the Lower Animals' (1872), and the last, ' On Vegetable Mould 

 and Earth-worms' (1881), bore more or less directly on botanical 

 science, we will refer to them a little more in detail. 



The name of Darwin will be associated for all time with the 

 theories of Evolution and Natural Selection, the general acceptance 

 of which by naturahsts has wrought such a revolution in the mode 

 of studying natural science. The exposition and illustration of 

 these laws, applying as they do to both the animal and vegetable 

 kingdom, will be found in his ' Origin of Species by means of 

 Natural Selection' (1859) and the 'Variation of Animals and 

 Plants under Domestication' (2 vols., 1868). While, however, he 

 is distinctly of opinion that all existing species of animals and 

 plants are descended from at most a very few ancestral forms, 

 Mr. Darwin clearly states his view, both in earlier and later 

 editions of the former of these works, that "natural selection," 

 although the main, has " not been the exclusive means of modifi- 

 cation." The laws of inheritance are thus summarised in the latter 

 work : — " Firstly, a tendency in every character, new and old, to be 

 transmitted, by seminal and bud generation, though often counter- 

 acted by various known and unknow^n causes. Secondly, reversion 

 or atavism, which depends on transmission and development being 

 distinct powers ; it acts in various degrees and manners through 

 both seminal and bud generation. Thu-dly, prepotency of trans- 



