FUNCTION AND ENVIRONMENT 187 



dans I'age rnur" — which his indocile refusals 

 to submit to outworn university curricula 

 had made possible, which the "Beagle" 

 voyage made fuller and more vivid, which 

 an unrivalled British doggedness made ever 

 more positive and real — visions of the web 

 of life, of the fountain of change within the 

 organism, of the struggle for existence and 

 its winnowing, and of the spreading genea- 

 logical tree. Because, in the second place, 

 he put so much grit into the substantiation 

 of his visions, putting them to the proof in 

 an argument which is of its kind — direct 

 demonstration being out of the question — 

 quite unequalled. Because, in the third 

 place, he broke down the opposition which 

 the most scientific had felt to the seductive 

 modal formula of evolution, by bringing 

 forward a more workable theory of the pro- 

 cess than had been previously stated. Nor 

 can we forget, since questions of this magni- 

 tude are human and not merely academic, 

 that he wrote, in his mingled simplicity 

 and condescension, so that all men could 

 understand. 



Theories of Evolution, Classified. — 

 So far the general doctrine of descent; but 

 some of the pioneers did more than apply 

 the evolution idea as a modal formula of 

 becoming: they began to inquire into the 



