24 Chapters hi Modern Botany chap. 



" Naturalist's Voyage/' Year after year, he watches for 

 himself the drama of organic nature, sees it more fully and 

 more deeply than ever great naturalist before had the 

 good hap to do ; and so returns to use indeed the museum 

 and the scalpel as well as another, but always as a mere 

 means to an end — that of watching the organic drama, 

 scene by scene, and if it might be deciphering the inner 

 mechanism of the plot. For him, as for not a few pene- 

 trating predecessors, the plot is Evolutio7i (whatever that 

 may mean), and his special interpretation of its mechanism 

 is his world-famous " theory of natural selection," at which 

 we have already glanced, and to which we shall come more 

 fully by and by. Now it is plain that this reading of the 

 drama of the universe neither began with Darwin nor can 

 end with him ; it is indeed at the very outset frankly to be 

 admitted as one of the purposes of this little book to help 

 the reader towards getting beyond the Darwinian theory of 

 the progress of nature ; yet all the more must it be insisted 

 on, not only that we appreciate clearly what that theory is, — 

 and this, of course, in no mere literary fashion, — but as an 

 actual seeing of nature, scene by scene, as it appeared to 

 Darwin's eyes : this too not merely for the general theo- 

 retic interest, much less the special controversial one just 

 hinted at, but for its intrinsic interest as well — indeed first 

 and foremost. At the drama of evolution mankind are 

 but awakening spectators ; here is one who, even if we 

 put aside his general interpretation of its nature and 

 mechanism for the moment altogether, we should still have 

 to appeal to as not only the most patient but the most 

 penetrating of observ^ers. We cannot have, it is true, too 

 full a list of the kinds or " species " of the innumerable and 

 strangely varied d7'a7)iatisperso7iczj we cannot look too closely 

 into their corpses as they fall, else we shall fail to understand 

 much ; if we dry or pickle these sad remains they will be of 



