INTRODUCTION. 423 



through whereby he is selected among millions 

 of the same human species to unfold Natural 

 Selection! 



Now this experience as told by himself, is 

 emphatically insular, as he proceeds in his 

 voyage on the Bca/jlc from one group of is- 

 lands to another. He starts of course with the 

 British Isles which were doubtless at one time 

 connected with the continent, but have been 

 long separated from it, and have developed 

 their own peculiar species and varieties among 

 living things, notably, the man and his institu- 

 tions. The first group of islands to which the 

 vessel canie was the Cape de Verde, lying off 

 the coast of Africa, and closely related to it, 

 though differing from it enough to suggest 

 a little bit of evolution, if the thought was 

 ready. But the great insular experience of 

 Darwin on his voyage, which lasted five years 

 altogether, was at the Galapagos Islands, in 

 the Pacific, some hundreds of miles west of 

 South America, under the Equator. They were 

 of volcanic origin, their geology as well as 

 their fauna and flora indicated their original 

 connection with the South American main- 

 land. 



It may be said that Darwin at the Galapagos 

 Islands saw his theory rise bodily before his 

 eyes out of the ocean. In the territory itself 

 he beheld variation and descent from an ances- 



