18 PROFESSOR POULTON. 



sketch into a completed essay which he felt, whatever 

 happened, would contain a sufficient account of his views ; 

 and on July 5th he made his " solemn and last request " to his 

 wife, begging her, in the event of his death, to make arrange- 

 ments for its publication. Only a few weeks after this, the 

 psychological moment in his career, Darwin acknowledged 

 his debt to Lyell ; and when we consider how intensely 

 Lyellian were the three lines of argument two based on 

 geographical distribution, and one on the relation between the 

 most recent fossils and the forms now living in a country 

 by which Darwin was first convinced of the truth of evolution,, 

 we cannot avoid the conclusion that he was right in feeling 

 the debt to be a very heavy one. 



Although Darwin spoke of the three years at Cambridge 

 as " the most joyful in my happy life," neither he nor Lyell 

 appear to have thought that they owed very much to their 

 Universities. In this respect I cannot but believe that both 

 these great men were mistaken, and I think it would be 

 interesting to enquire what would be likely to happen to such 

 men as Darwin or Lyell if they entered Cambridge or 

 Oxford at the present day. 



I remember many years ago seeing in the papers among 

 the news from India a message which read, with the quaint 

 humour sometimes conferred by the abbreviation of tele- 

 graphic despatch : " A new Saint has appeared in the 

 northern provinces. The police are already on his track." 

 In not dissimilar language we must own that when fresh genius 

 appears at the Universities, the examiners are hard upon 

 its track ; and the effect of the pressure of examina- 

 tions upon genius is apt to be similar to that of the removal 

 of Pharoah's chariot wheels, so that they draw heavily. And 

 with regard to Darwin's teacher Henslow, would the Henslow 

 of to-day have the time and the opportunity to discover and 

 to influence a student who did not care to read for Honours, but 

 preferred to go into the country to collect beetles or into the 

 Fens to collect plants ? I do not ask these questions in any 

 pessimistic spirit. There is no need for despair ; for I believe 

 that we are all aware of the danger of the excessive pressure 

 of examinations at the present moment in both our ancient 



