268 OBITUARY x 
obtained the opportunity of accompanying the 
Geological Professor on one of his excursions in 
Wales. He then received a certain amount of 
practical instruction in Geology, the value of which 
he subsequently warmly acknowledged. (I. p. 
237.) In another direction, Henslow did him 
immense, though not altogether intention 
service, by recommending him to buy and study 
the recently published first volume of Liyell’s 
“Principles.” As an orthodox geologist of the 
then dominant catastrophic school, Henslow 
accompanied his recommendation with the 
admonition on no account to adopt Lyell’s 
general views. But the warning fell on deaf 
ears, and it is hardly too much to say that 
Darwin’s greatest work is the outcome of the 
unflinching application to Biology of the leading 
idea and the method applied in the “ Principles” 
to geology. Finally, it was through Henslow, 
and at his suggestion, that Darwin was offered the 
appointment to the “ Beagle” as naturalist. 4 
During the latter part of Darwin’s residence at 
Cambridge the prospect of entering the Church, 
though the plan was never formally renounced, - 
? “ After my return to England it appeared to me that by 
following the example of Lyellin Geology, and by collecting all — 
facts which bore in any way on the variation of animals an 
plants under domestication and nature, some light might pers = 
haps be thrown on the whole subject [of the origin of species].” — 
(I. p. 83.) See also the dedication of the second edition of the 
Journal of a Naturalist. 
