PREFACE. 



While these selections can not but be useful to those 

 who are perfectly familiar with the writings of Darwin, 

 they are designed especially for those who know little, 

 or nothing, about his line of research and argument, 

 and yet would like to obtain a general idea of it in a 

 form which shall be at once authentic, brief, and inex- 

 pensive. 



This volume contains, of course, only an outline of 

 the contents of the twelve volumes from which it is 

 compiled, and for which it is by no means intended as 

 a substitute. It will, on the contrary, we should hope, 

 create an appetite which can be satisfied only by a care- 

 ful reading of the works themselves. 



Darwin's repetitions, necessitated by his method of 

 investigation and publication, and his unexampled can- 

 dor in controversy, have been something of an embar- 

 rassment in the classification of these passages ; so that 

 we have been obliged in some instances to sacrifice con- 

 tinuity to perspicuity. But, as one object of this book 

 is to correct misrepresentations by giving Darwin's views 



