DA R WIN'S VIE WS OF ME TIIOD. 2 / 



advantages and many disadvantages in lectures 

 compared with reading. 1 



He has given in his Autobiography the vari- 

 ous special subjects that occupied his attention 

 on the Beagle voyage. He attended to Zool- 

 ogy, Botany, and Geology. After mentioning 

 the others, he said that Geology " was far more 

 important, as reasoning here comes into play. 

 On first examining a new district, nothing can 

 appear more hopeless than the chaos of rocks; 

 but by recording the stratification and nature 

 of the rocks and fossils at many points, always 

 reasoning and predicting what will be found 

 elsewhere, light soon begins to dawn on the 

 district, and the structure of the whole becomes 

 more or less intelligible." 2 It is interesting 

 to recall that he finally committed the shooting 

 of birds to his servant in order that he might 

 devote himself to the geology of the districts 

 in which he worked. The zoological and 

 botanical materials which he collected were 

 largely worked up by other scientists after his 

 return. On these subjects he collected a vast 

 amount of information, which gave birth to 

 his great biological theories, and was indis- 

 pensable in the work of his later life. But he 



1 Life and Letters, Vol. I. p. 33. 



2 Ibid., pp. 51, 52. 



