DARWIN. lyi 



DARWIN. 



IN each field of human thought there stand some 

 few great names which mark the epochs in its 

 history. In the study of the Hving things upon the 

 earth these names are three, — Linnaeus, Cuvier, 

 and Darwin. Old as the world was when Linnaeus 

 was born, before him scarcely any one had thought 

 of flowers and birds and butterflies as objects of 

 serious study. The ''Christian Era" of biology 

 begins with the year 1758; ^ and the death of the 

 great Swede who rocked the cradle of the infant 

 science took place little more than a century ago. 



Linnaeus has taught us to name and describe 

 the objects of Nature, that knowledge once gained 

 may be communicated to others. Cuvier has 

 taught us to see unity of structure underlying the 

 greatest diversity of appearance, and to group these 

 objects together in accordance with this unity. 

 Darwin has given us the clew as to the meaning of 

 this unity, — that unity in structure is brotherhood 

 in fact. 



Charles Robert Darwin was born in the town of 

 Shrewsbury, Feb. 12, 1809, and died at his country 



1 The date of the tenth edition of Linnseus' " Systema Naturae." 

 Botanists usually begin farther back, at 1737, the date of the 

 "Genera Plantarum." 



