EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



measure right to speak of his death as prema- 

 ture. 



After all, however, no one can fail to recog- 

 nize in the career of Mr. Darwin the interest 

 that belongs to a complete and well-rounded 

 tale. When the extent of his work is properly 

 estimated, it is not too much to say that among 

 all the great leaders of human thought that have 

 ever lived there are not half a dozen who have 

 achieved so much as he. In an age that has been 

 richer than any preceding age in great scientific 

 names, his name is indisputably the foremost. 

 He has already found his place in the history 

 of science by the side of Aristotle, Descartes, 

 and Newton. And among thinkers of the first 

 order of originality, he has been peculiarly for- 

 tunate in having lived to see all the fresh and 

 powerful minds of a new generation adopting 

 his fundamental conceptions, and pursuing their 

 inquiries along the path which he was the first 

 to break. 



When Mr. Darwin was born, in 1809, the 

 name which he inherited was already a famous 

 name. Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the friend of 

 Priestley and Watt, and author of the " Botanic 

 Garden," was deservedly ranked among the 

 most ingenious and original thinkers of the 

 eighteenth century in England. His brother, 

 Robert Waring Darwin, was the author of a 

 work on botany which for many years enjoyed 

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