2 14 Charles Darwin. 



[\saLZ.z Newton, and were followed to the tomb, not 

 I only by dignitaries of Church and State, but by the 

 V universal reverence of the scientific world.* 



DARWIN'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHILOSOPHY. 



BY JOHN W. POWELL, PH.D., LL.D., M.N.A.S., 



Director of U. S. Geological Survey, Director Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



Many are the definitions of philosophy. If we 

 wish not to define what is true philosophy, but 

 simply to define the term in all its uses when refer- 

 ring to all times and all men, this definition will do : 

 philosophy is the explanation of the phenomena of the V 

 y\^niverse. 



Now, the phenomena of the universe are em- 

 braced in many vast categories. 



First, we have the constitution of the heavenly 

 bodies, and their real and apparent motions to be 

 explained. What are they, and how came they to 

 be what they are ? 



Then we have the earth itself ; its forms, its lands 

 and seas, its mountains and valleys, its rivers and 

 lakes, the winds which blow about it, the storms 

 which fall upon it, the lightnings that flash athwart 

 the sky, the thunders that roll among the clouds. 

 What are all these things, and whence came they, 

 and why are they? Again, in the constitution of 

 the earth we find rocks with their minerals, and geo- 



* It IS hardly necessary to state that this sketch is a compilation 

 from all the different sources which happened to be available at the 

 time. 



