DARWIN. 



173 



These five years of minute, detailed observation 

 formed the best of Darwin's scientific training, and 

 they have been the basis of all his later work. The 

 primary results of this voyage were a number of 

 papers and treatises on matters connected with his 

 observations on the geological structure and the 

 fauna and flora of the regions visited, — works 

 which brought their author at once to the front 

 rank among the scientific men of England. Then 

 for a long time Darwin published nothing; and it 

 was not until after twenty-five years of elaboration 

 and verification that the main results of the voy- 

 age of the *' Beagle," his own observations on the 

 changes of animals and plants under varying condi- 

 tions, came to light in the volume on the " Origin 

 of Species." This was in 1859. 



That Darwin had not been idle during these 

 twenty-five years is shown by his own words, — 

 words which may be read with profit by any young 

 man who is anxious for sudden greatness, who 

 wishes to gather his strawberries before they are 

 ripe. He says : — 



" When on board H. M. S. ' Beagle ' as naturalist, I 

 was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of 

 the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the 

 geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants 

 of the continent. These facts seemed to throw some light 

 on the origin of species, — that mystery of mysteries, as it 

 has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On 

 my return home it occurred to me (in 1837) that some- 

 thing might perhaps be made out on this question by 

 patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts 

 which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five 



