)t D, Apptetori tfe C&mpdnyU hAlkaiimi. 



daitti^ cease. I have felt all ffiv life^ and I still feel, the most 

 sincere satisfaction tliat Mr. Darwin had been at work long be- 

 fore me, and that it was not left for me to attempt to write 

 the ' Origin of Species.' I have long since measured ray own 

 strength, and know well that it would be quite unequal to that 

 task. Far abler men than myself may confess that they have 

 not that untiring patience in accumulating, and that wonder- 

 ful skill in using, large masses of facts of the most varied kind 

 — ^that wide and accurate physiological knowledge — that acute- 

 ness in devising, that skill in carrying out experiments, 

 and that admirable style of composition, at once clear, persua- 

 sive, and judicial, qualities which, in their harmonious combi- 

 nation, mark out Mr. Darwin as the man, perhaps of all men 

 now living, best fitted for the great work he has undertaken 

 and accomphshed." 



Prof. T. H. Huxley says : " We do not speak jestingly in 

 saying that it is Mr. Darwi«'s misfortune to know more about 

 the question he has taken up than any man living. Personally 

 and practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in ge- 

 ology ; a student of geographical distribution, not on maps and 

 in museums only, but by long voyages and laborious collection ; 

 having largely advanced each of these branches of science, and 

 having spent many years in gathering and sifting materials for 

 his present work, the store of accurately-registered facts upon 

 which the author of the ' Origin of Species ' is able to draw at 

 will is prodigious." 



An interesting example of the change of opinion upon this 

 subject among the scientific men of England is furnished by 

 Sir Charles Ltell — perhaps the most learned of living geolo- 

 gists, and who has powerfully contributed to give that science 

 its present shape and direction. After having studied for fifty 

 years the subject of life in connection with the past changes 

 of the globe, and embodied the older views in all his numerous 

 works, he has at length, in tlie tenth edition of his " Principles 

 of Geology," abandoned the old ground as untenable, and 

 fidopted the views represented by Mr. Darwin. 



