196 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION 1 PART 



the Origin in 1859, had the effect upon them of 

 the flash of light, which, to a man who has lost him- 

 self in a dark night suddenly reveals a road which, 

 whether it takes him straight home or not, certainly 

 goes his way. That which we were looking for and 

 could not find was a hypothesis respecting the origin 

 of known organic forms which assumed the opera- 

 tion of no causes but such as could be proved to be 

 actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith 

 to that or any other speculation, but to get hold of 

 clear and definite conceptions which could be 

 brought face to face with facts, and have their 

 validity tested. The Origin provided us with the 

 working hypothesis we sought. Moreover, it did the 

 immense service of freeing us for ever from the 

 dilemma refuse to accept the creation hypothesis, 

 and what have you to propose that can be accepted 

 by any cautious reason er ? In 1857 I had no 

 answer ready, and I do not think that any one 

 else had. A year later we reproached ourselves 

 with dulness for being perplexed by such an enquiry. 

 My reflection, when I first made myself master of 

 the central idea of the Origin was " How extremely 

 stupid not to have thought of that ! " I suppose 

 that Columbus's companions said much the same 

 when he made the egg stand on end. The facts 

 of variability, of the struggle for existence, of adap- 

 tation 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 dispelled the darkness, 

 and the beacon - fire of the Origin guided the 

 benighted/ 



