202 Charles Darwin. 



— to arrange and present the facts and to draw the 

 deductions therefrom. Ever a close observer, prac- 

 tised in many lands, student of all nature — especially 

 skilled as a geologist, a botanist, and a zoologist — 

 endowed with a severely judicial mind, honest above 

 all, none like him had ever grappled with the mys- 

 tery of creation. For more than twenty years he 

 had pondered on the subject ; with impartial severity 

 he had weighed the evidence. He was, perforce, 

 led to the conclusion that all the living had been 

 derived from past forms, with modifications incident 

 to individuality ; the sums of the divergences, small 

 in themselves, became large in the aggregate, be- 

 came enormous in time. The increasing beings, 

 crowding upon each other, invading each other's 

 domains, struggled for the life into which they were 

 born. Happy were those possessing some slight 

 advantage — strength, swiftness, dexterity, or adapt- 

 ability resulting from modification of structure — 

 for they could procure place or food at the expense 

 of their competitors, and the characters that gave 

 them victory secured, likewise, the temporary as- 

 cendancy of their kind. How great is this variability 

 our domesticated animals attest ; how ancient is our 

 globe geology teaches ; that the race is to the strong 

 or the cunning observation of inferior nature as- 

 sui;es. With known variability, time, and space, 

 what could not result ? Which, then, was the more 

 probable, that Nature — or, if you will, the Creator 

 — had always operated under law, or that there had 

 been constant interference ? 



Thus were the issues fairly joined. On the one 



