The Days of a Man 1909 



Shrewsbury in Shropshire. On the same day, in a log cabin in 

 Kentucky, was born Abraham Lincoln. These two, more than 

 any other>men, have given to the nineteenth century its color, 

 its individuality, its place among the ages. 



Darwin In 1859, just fifty years ago, and fifty years from the date 



and of his birth, Charles Darwin published "The Origin of Species." 



Lincoln Q ne vear j ater t j ian t j 1 j s> L mco l n became President of the 



United States, and his unique personality began to stamp itself 

 on the nation of democracy, and on the world, which is in turn 

 a democracy in proportion as its people are competent units, 

 fit to take care of themselves. 



"The Origin of Species" has changed the entire face x>f the 

 science of life and its philosophy, which must ever be the out- 

 growth of science. It gave to scientific men, with its demonstra- 

 tion of the origin of living forms as natural descendants of pre- 

 existing forms, the first clear explanation of the phenomena of 

 orderly change. It did not convince men of the truth of this. 

 It did far more. It showed men how each one who studied must 

 convince himself; . . . Before Darwin, biologists had cata- 

 logued, compared, and classified; but to their questions of 

 "Why?" no answer could be given. 



Since Darwin's time, a half century has passed, the period 

 of the greatest activity in research in the history of man. Ex- 

 plorers, experimenters, discoverers, observers, philosophers, de- 

 baters of all ranks and grades have been busily at work, clearing 

 the air and obscuring the outlook. What now is the status of 

 Darwinism? What today is our conception of Organic Evolu- 

 tion? 



When a new land is opened to exploration, its first map, 

 sketched from some mountain peak perhaps, shows the general 

 features of the land, but without special detail, unless it be 

 about the mountain peak itself. Such a new land was opened by 

 Darwin in his survey of the methods and processes of Organic 

 Evolution. In a large way, the salient features of the land were 

 sketched with amazing truthfulness. The rivers run where he 

 placed them. We have his word for valley, forest, and cliff, 

 and in all these larger features fifty years have wrought no very 

 material changes. Men have sought to change the map. Shrill 

 voices from every civilized nation have arisen in criticism. Here 



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