CHARLES DARWIN. 433 
similar prepossessions ; and that the Darwinian theory, legiti- 
mately 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 himself famous. When this happened to Darwin, it 
was a genuine surprise. 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 en- 
sued, 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 win acceptance from the younger and more 
observant of these. The reason why these moderate expecta- 
tions 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 contributed to its force. Most 
of them in their practical studies had worked up to, or were 
nearly approaching, the question of the relation of the past 
inhabitants of the earth to the present, and of the present to 
one another, in such wise as to suggest inevitably that, some- 
how or other, descent with modification was eventually to be 
the explanation. This was the natural outcome of the line of 
thought of which Lyell early became the cautious and fair- 
minded expositor, and with which he reconstructed theoretical 
geology. If Lyell had known as much at first hand of botany 
or zoology as he knew of geology, it is probable that his cel- 
ebrated chapter on the permanence of species in the “ Prin- 
