: 
286 OBITUARY 
i 
1859, under the title “On the Origin of Species 
by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation 
of Favoured Races in the Struggle of Life.” q 
It is doubtful if any single book, except the 
“ Principia,” ever worked so great and so rapid a 
revolution in science, or made so deep an 
impression on the general mind. It aroused a 
tempest of opposition and met with equally 
vehement support, and it must be added that 
no book has been more widely and persistently 
misunderstood by both friends and foes. In 1861, 
Darwin remarks to a correspondent, “ You under- 
stand my book perfectly, and that I find a very 
rare event with my critics.” (I. p. 313.) The 
immense popularity which the “ Origin” at once 
acquired was no doubt largely due to its many 
points of contact with philosophical and theo- 
logical questions in which every intelligent man 
feels a profound interest; but a good deal must 
be assigned to a somewhat delusive simplicity of — 
style, which tends to disguise the complexity and 7 
difficulty of the subject, and much to the wealth ; 
of information on all sorts of curious problems of 
natural history, which is made accessible to the — 
most unlearned reader. But long occupation with — 
the work has led the present writer to believe 
that the “Origin of Species” is one of the hardest — 
of books to master;} and he is justified in this — 
f 
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1 He is comforted to find that probably the best qualified | 
judge among all the readers of the Origin in 1859 was of the — 
a 3 
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