X OBITUARY 275 



the return of the " Beagle " to England ; and thus 

 the date which Darwin (writing in 1837) assigns to 

 the dawn of the new light which was rising in his 

 mind becomes intelligible. 1 



" In July opened first note-book on Transmuta- 

 tion of Species. Had been greatly struck from 

 about the month of previous March on character 

 of South American fossils and species on Gala- 

 pagos Archipelago. These facts (especially latter) 

 origin of all my views/' (I. p. 276.) 



From March, 1837, then, Darwin, not without 

 many misgivings and fluctuations of opinion, 

 inclined towards transmutation as a provisional 

 hypothesis. Three months afterwards he is hard 

 at work collecting facts for the purpose of test- 

 ing the hypothesis ; and an almost apologetic 

 passage in a letter to Lyell shows that, already, 

 the attractions of biology are beginning to pre- 

 dominate over those of geology. 



" I have lately been sadly tempted to be idle 2 



1 I am indebted to Mr. F. Darwin for the knowledge of a 

 letter addressed by his father to Dr. Otto Zacharias in 1877 

 which contains the following paragraph, confirmatory of the 

 view expressed above : "When I was on board the Beagle, I 

 believed in the permanence of species, but, as far as I can 

 remember, vague doubts occasionally flitted across my mind. 

 On my return home in the autumn of 1836, I immediately began 

 to prepare my journal for publication, and then saw how many 

 facts indicated the common descent of species, so that in July, 

 1837, I opened a note-book to record any facts which might bear 

 on the question. But I did not become convinced that species 

 were mutable until, I think, two or three years had elapsed." 



2 Darwin generally uses the word "idle" in a peculiar sense. 

 He means by it working hard at something he likes when he 



T 2 



