134 CHARLES DARWIN. 



throne of the world of thought, from the limbo of hated and, 

 as many hoped, forgotten things, is the most portentous event 

 of the nineteenth century." 



And for this he gives Darwin the credit. 



Later on he indicates the sense in which his keen 

 appreciation of natural selection is to be understood. 

 Thus, such strong statements as — 



"... the publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers 

 in 1858, and still more that of the ' Origin ' in 1859, had the 

 eflfect ... of the flash of light, which to a man who has 

 lost himself in a dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, 

 whether it takes him straight home or not, certainly goes his 

 way " ; . 



and — 



"The facts of variability, of the struggle for existence, of 

 adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough ; but none of 

 us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species 

 problem lay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dis- 

 pelled the darkness, and the beacon-fire of the ' Origin ' 

 guided the benighted," 



if they stood alone, might naturally be interpreted 

 as an unqualified testimony to the permanent truth 

 of natural selection. But this interpretation is ex- 

 pressly excluded : — 



"Whether the particular shape which the doctrine of 

 evolution, as applied to the organic world, took in Darwin's 

 hands, would prove to be final or not, was, to me, a matter 

 of indifference. In my earliest criticisms of the ' Origin ' 

 I ventured to point that its logical foundation was insecure 

 . . . ; and that insecurity remains." 



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