THE DARWINIAN REVOLUTION BEGINS 125 



the Darwinian theory and the errors of Darwinism 

 staring him in the face a hundred times a day from 

 every newspaper and every periodical. 



Of course the ' Origin of Species ' was largely 

 translated at once into all the civilised languages of 

 Europe, Russian as well as French, Dutch as well as 

 German, Swedish as well as Italian, Spanish as well as 

 Hungarian, nay even, at last, transcending narrow 

 continental limits, Japanese as well as Hindustani. The 

 revolution which it was rapidly effecting was indeed a 

 revolution in every mode of thought and feeling as well 

 as a revolution in mere restricted biological opinion. 

 But all this time, the modest, single-minded, and un- 

 assuming author was working unmoved among his 

 plants and pigeons in his home at Down, regardless of 

 the European fame he was so quickly acquiring, and 

 anxious only to bring to a termination the vast work 

 which he still contemplated. A little more than eleven 

 years intervened between the publication of the ' Origin 

 of Species,' in 1859, and the first appearance of the 

 ' Descent of Man,' in 1871. The interval was occupied 

 in carrying out in part the gigantic scheme of his 

 original collections for the full treatment of the develop- 

 ment theory. The work published in 1859 Darwin 

 regarded merely as an abstract and preliminary outline 

 of his full opinions : ' No one can feel more sensible 

 than I do,' he wrote, ' of the necessity of hereafter 

 publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on 

 which my conclusions have been grounded.' The 

 marvellously learned work on the ' Variation of 

 Animals and Plants under Domestication,' which came 

 out in two volumes in 1867, formed the first instalment 

 12 



