ix THE DEBT OF SCIENCE TO DARWIN 455 



were found to exhibit a progressive advancement from 

 ancient to recent times, while the breaks in the series 

 between each great geological formation were held to show 

 that the older forms of life had been destroyed, and were 

 replaced by a new creation of a more advanced organisation 

 suited to the altered conditions of the world. 



And thus, perhaps, we might have gone on to this day, 

 ever accumulating fresh masses of fact, while each set of 

 workers became ever more and more occupied in their own 

 departments of study, and, for want of any intelligible theory 

 to connect and harmonise the whole, less and less able to 

 appreciate the labours of their colleagues, had not Charles 

 Darwin made his memorable voyage round the world, and 

 thenceforth devoted himself, as so many had done before him, 

 to a life of patient research in the domain of organic nature. 

 But how different was the object attained ! Others have 

 added greatly to our knowledge of details, or created a 

 reputation by some important work ; he has given us new 

 conceptions of the world of life, and a theory which is itself 

 a powerful instrument of research ; has shown us how to 

 combine into one consistent whole the facts accumulated 

 by all the separate classes of workers, and has thereby 

 revolutionised the whole study of nature. Let us endeavour 

 to see by what means he arrived at this vast result. 



The Voyage of the BEAGLE 



Passing by the ancestry and early life of Darwin, which 

 have been made known to the whole reading public by many 

 biographical notices and recently by the publication of his 

 Life and Letters, we may begin with the first event to which 

 we can distinctly trace his future greatness his appointment 

 as naturalist to the Beagle, on the recommendation of his 

 friend and natural -history teacher, Professor Henslow, of 

 Cambridge University. It was in 1831, when Darwin, then 

 twenty-two years of age, had just taken his B.A. degree, that 

 he left England on his five years' voyage in the Southern 

 Hemisphere. It is probably to this circumstance that the 

 world owes the great revolution in our conception of the 

 organic world so well known as the Darwinian theory. The 

 opportunity of studying nature in new and strange lands; 



