196 CHARLES DARWIN 



prodigious mass of Darwin's facts, the cautious working 

 of Darwin's intellect, the immense weight of Darwin's 

 reputation, the crushing force of Darwin's masterly in- 

 ductive method, bore down before them all opposition in 

 the inner circle of biologists, and secured the triumph 

 of the evolutionary system even in the very strongholds 

 of ignorance and obscurantism. Without Darwin, a 

 small group of philosophic thinkers would still be striv- 

 ing to impress upon an incredulous and somewhat con- 

 temptuous world the central truths of the evolutionary 

 doctrine. The opposition of the elders, long headed even 

 in the society we actually know by a few stern scientific 

 recalcitrants, like Owen and Agassiz, Pictet and Dawson, 

 Virchow and Mivart, would have fought desperately in 

 the last trench for the final figment of the fixity of 

 species. What is now the general creed, more or less 

 loosely held and imperfectly understood, of hundreds and 

 thousands among the intelligent mass, would, under such 

 circumstances, be even yet the mere party-shibboleth of 

 an esoteric few, struggling hard against the bare force 

 of overwhelming numbers to ensure not only recogni- 

 tion but a fair hearing for the first principles of the 

 development theory. It is to Darwin, and to Darwin 

 almost alone, that we owe the present comparatively 

 wide acceptance of the all-embracing doctrine of evolu- 

 tion. 



No other man did so much or could have done so 

 much to ensure its triumph. He began early in life to 

 collect and arrange a vast encyclopedia of facts, all 

 finally focussed with supreme skill upon the great prin- 

 ciple he so clearly perceived, and so lucidly expounded. 

 He brought to bear upon the question an amount of 



