C6 LIFE OF 



this is partly owing to his exceeding modesty. He was 

 over-ready to acknowledge the value to himself of other 

 people's ideas, and he under-estimated the strength of the 

 illumination which his own mind threw upon those ideas, 

 transforming them from guesses into probable hypotheses, 

 confirming them by his vast and varied knowledge, and 

 building a superstructure where they had laid but an 

 uncertain foundation. The question was in the air; 

 guessing replies of great interest were made by a few 

 who doubted the received belief; but they were not 

 satisfying answers and they did not effect a revolution. 

 Goethe in Germany, Erasmus Darwin in England, 1 and 



1 It is worth while to reproduce here a few sentences from 

 Erasmus Darwin's "Zoonomia," showing how acutely he guessed 

 in the direction of evolution. 



"When we revolve in our minds, first, the great changes which 

 we see naturally produced in animals after their nativity. . . . 

 Secondly, when we think over the great changes introduced into 

 various animals by artificial or accidental cultivation. . . . Thirdly, 

 when we enumerate the great changes produced in the species of 

 animals before their nativity. . . . Fourthly, when we revolve in 

 our minds the great similarity of structure which obtains in all the 

 warm-blooded animals. . . . Fifthly, from their first rudiment or 

 primordium to the termination of their lives, all animals undergo per- 

 petual transformations, which are in part produced by their own exer- 

 tions ; . . . and many of these acquired forms or propensities are 

 transmitted to their posterity. ... A great want of one part of the 

 animal world has consisted in the desire of the exclusive possession 

 of the female ; and these have acquired weapons to combat each other 

 for this purpose. . . . The final cause of this contest amongst the 

 males seems to be that the strongest and most active animal should 

 propagate the species, which should thence become improved. An- 

 other great want consists in the means of procuring food, which has 

 diversified the forms of all species of animals. ... All which seem 

 to have been gradually produced during many generations by the 



