60 CHARLES DARWIN 



the results of his accumulations, he was beginning 

 to work upon the great problem with the definite and 

 conscious resolution of solving it. ' On my return 

 home, it occurred to me,' he says, ' in 1837, that some- 

 thing might perhaps be made out on this question by 

 patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of 

 facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. 

 After five years' work, I allowed myself to speculate on 

 the subject, and drew up some short notes ; these I en- 

 larged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions that 

 then seemed to me probable ; from that period to the 

 present day [1859] I have steadily pursued the same 

 object. I hope that T may be excused for entering on 

 these personal details, as I give them to show that I 

 have not been hasty in coming to a decision.' 



So Darwin wrote at fifty. The words are weighty 

 and well worthy of consideration. They give us in a 

 nutshell the true secret of Darwin's success in compel- 

 ling the attention and assent of his contemporaries to 

 his completed theory. For speculations and hypotheses 

 like those of Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin, however 

 brilliant and luminous they may be, the hard, dry, 

 scientific mind cares as a rule less than nothing. Men 

 of genius and insight like Goethe and Oken may, 

 indeed, seize greedily upon the pregnant suggestion; 

 their intellects are already attuned by nature to its due 

 reception and assimilation; but the mere butterfly- 

 catchers and plant-hunters of the world, with whom 

 after all rests ultimately the practical acceptance or 

 rejection of such a theory, can only be convinced by 

 long and patient accumulations of facts, by infinite 

 instances and endless examples, by exhaustive surveys 



