LIFE OF DARWIN. 



CHAPTER I. 



IF ever a man's ancestors transmitted to him ability 

 to succeed in a particular field, Charles Darwin's 

 did. If ever early surroundings were calculated to call 

 out inherited ability, Charles Darwin's were. If ever a 

 man grew up when a ferment of thought was disturbing 

 old convictions in the domain of knowledge for which he 

 was adapted, Charles Darwin did. If ever a man was 

 fitted by worldly position to undertake unbiassed and 

 long-continued investigations, Charles Darwin was such a 

 man. And he indisputably found realms waiting for a 

 conqueror. Yet Darwin's achievements far transcend 

 his advantages of ancestry, surroundings, previous sug- 

 gestion, position. He stands magnificently conspicuous 

 as a genius of rare simplicity of soul, of unwearied 

 patience of observation, of striking fertility and ingenuity 

 of method, of unflinching devotion to and belief in the 

 efficacy of truth. He revolutionised not merely half-a- 

 dozen sciences, but the whole current of thinking men's 

 mental life. 



The Darwins were originally a Lincolnshire family of 

 some position, and being royalists suffered heavy losses 



