INTRODUCTION. 4H 



win indeed is inclined to limit Evolution to his 

 own organism, hardly reaching his self-re- 

 turned Ego, which therefore works quite un- 

 conscious of its true end, and in the deeper 

 sense does not know what it has done name- 

 ly evolved out of Evolution. Still the evolu- 



V 



tionarv biologist must not omit himself from 



*/ 



his OAvn process; just he is the greatest fact 

 of it, as he wheels about and recreates in 

 thought his entire Evolution perchance from 

 a microscopic cell. And when he has evolved 

 himself evolving Evolution, it is plain that 

 he has evolved its master. His Biology thus 

 winds up in his Biography, therein rounding 

 itself out to completion. 



There can be no doubt that his age, and es- 

 pecially his nation were ready for Darwin, 

 in fact were calling for him, and hence rose 

 the mighty response to his book. This was a 

 fact which Darwin himself did not always see ; 

 he is inclined to deny that "the subject was 

 in the air, or that men's minds were prepared 

 for it.' ; He says (in his Autobiography) that 

 he "sounded not a few naturalists, and never 

 happened to come across a single one who 

 seemed to doubt about the permanence of the 

 species.' 1 Even his closest friends held back. 

 Lyell the geologist and Hooker the botanist, 

 ' ' though they would listen with interest to me, 

 never seemed to agree." How could they 



