THEORIES OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



ural selection." After such a discovery any ordinary 

 man would at once have run through the streets of 

 science, so to speak, screaming "Eureka!" Not so 

 Darwin. He placed the manuscript outline of his 

 theory in his portfolio, and went on gathering facts 

 bearing on his discovery. In 1844 he made an abstract 

 in a manuscript book of the mass of facts by that time 

 accumulated. He showed it to his friend Hooker, 

 made careful provision for its publication in the event 

 of his sudden death, then stored it away in his desk 

 and went ahead with the gathering of more data. 

 This was the unexploded powder-mine to which I have 

 just referred. 



Twelve years more elapsed years during which the 

 silent worker gathered a prodigious mass of facts, an- 

 swered a multitude of objections that arose in his own 

 mind, vastly fortified his theory. All this time the 

 toiler was an invalid, never knowing a day free from 

 illness and discomfort, obliged to husband his strength, 

 never able to work more than an hour and a half at a 

 stretch; yet he accomplished what would have been 

 vast achievements for half a dozen men of robust 

 health. Two friends among the eminent scientists of 

 the day knew of his labors Sir Joseph Hooker, the 

 botanist, and Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist. Grad- 

 ually Hooker had come to be more than half a convert 

 to Darwin's views. Lyell was still sceptical, yet he 

 urged Darwin to publish his theory without further de- 

 lay lest he be forestalled. At last the patient worker 

 decided to comply with this advice, and in 1856 he set 

 to work to make another and fuller abstract of the 

 mass of data he had gathered. 



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