268 OBITUARY X 



obtained the opportunity of accompanying the 

 Geological Professor on one of his excursions in 

 Wales. He then received a certain amount of 

 practical instruction in Geology, the value of which 

 he subsequently warmly acknowledged. (I. p. 

 237.) In another direction, Henslow did him an 

 immense, though not altogether intentional 

 service, by recommending him to buy and study 

 the recently published first volume of Ly ell's 

 " Principles." As an orthodox geologist of the 

 then dominant catastrophic school, Henslow 

 accompanied his recommendation with the 

 admonition on no account to adopt Lyell's 

 general views. But the warning fell on deaf 

 ears, and it is hardly too much to say that 

 Darwin's greatest work is the outcome of the 

 unflinching application to Biology of the leading 

 idea and the method applied in the " Principles " 

 to geology. 1 Finally, it was through Henslow, 

 and at his suggestion, that Darwin was offered the 

 appointment to the " Beagle " as naturalist. 



During the latter part of Darwin's residence at 

 Cambridge the prospect of entering the Church, 

 though the plan was never formally renounced, 



1 ' ' After my return to England it appeared to me that by 

 following the example of Lyellin Geology, and by collecting all 

 facts which bore in any way on the variation of animals and 

 plants under domestication and nature, some light might per- 

 haps be thrown on the whole subject [of the origin of species]." 

 (I. p. 83.) See also the dedication of the second edition of the 

 Journal of a Naturalist. 



