42 Charles Robert Darwin. 



obscured by the intenser interest of the adjacent matter. 

 There was another outburst of odium theologiciim almost as 

 vehement as that which was occasioned by the book of 1859. 

 But the vehemence of the odiuTn scienti/ficum was consider- 

 ably less than then. And it Avas very noticeable that among 

 those who cried out against Darwin in 1872 there were fcAV, 

 if any, of the leading men of science. The six years that 

 had elapsed since he had said to Haeckel that he should not 

 live to see the triumph of his principles had synchronized 

 with an immense advance of scientific thought in the direc- 

 tion of that triumph. In America the personal charm of 

 Agassiz could not defend his piipils from the force of Dar- 

 win's argument, and almost to a man they had accepted his 

 conclusions. In Germany the greatest were the first to give 

 in their adhesion. Where such a giant as Johannes Miiller 

 led the way, it was entirely safe for lesser men to follow. 

 England, if not so quick as Germany to recognize that a 

 greater than Xewton Avas here, was still not sIoav, consider- 

 ing the prejudices that she had to conquer. The tide of 

 victory rolled on Avith steadily increasing force and volume 

 as the years Avent by, and when, in 1880, Huxley lectured 

 on "The Coming of Age of the 'Origin of Species,'" he 

 could say Avith perfect confidence : " Those who haA^e watched 

 the progress of science Avithin the last ten years Avill bear me 

 out to the full when I assert that there is no field of biolog- 

 ical inquiry in AAdiich the influence of the ' Origin of Species ' 

 is not traceable ; the foremost men of science in CA^ery coun- 

 try are either avoAved champions of its leading doctrines or 

 at any rate abstain from opposing them ; a host of young 

 and ardent iuA^estigators seek for and find inspiration in jSIr. 

 Darwin's great Avork ; and the general doctrine of Evolution, 

 to one side of which it gives expression, finds in the phe- 

 nomena of biology a firm base of operations A\drence it may 

 conduct its conquest of the whole realm of nature." 



In the history of thought there is nothing more remark- 

 able than the speedy triumph of a doctrine running so 

 strongly counter to the prejudices of mankind in faA'or of a 

 mechanic-God and so offensiA^e to their amoiiv jn'opre through 

 its assertion of their community of life Avith loAver and the 

 loAvest animal forms. Hoav are Ave to account for such a vic- 

 tory ? Largely by the intrinsic rationality of the doctrine 

 taught. Next by the overAvhelming mass of evidence which 

 DarAvin brought to its elucidation. Last, but not least, by 



