214 THE METHOD OF DARWIN. 



special character of the facts is accounted for, 

 but from the latter it is impossible to deduce 

 the specific character of any phenomena. Any 

 other set of facts exhibiting a plan or purpose 

 of any kind could be deduced with equal ease 

 from the doctrine of creation. 



When Darwin started on the Beagle voyage 

 he was orthodox on the question of the ori- 

 gin of species. As he travelled, and as his 

 knowledge of zoology and palaeontology became 

 wider and deeper, the doctrine of descent began 

 to take hold of him. The relation of the liv- 

 ing animals to the fossil species in South 

 America, the manner in which closely allied 

 animals replaced one another as he proceeded 

 southward over the continent, the South Amer- 

 ican character of the productions of the Gala- 

 pagos archipelago, and especially the slight 

 but distinct differences of the flora and fauna 

 on neighboring islands of the archipelago, im- 

 pressed him so strongly with the peculiar char- 

 acter of the facts and the necessity of a definite 

 mode of origin that he began to see the differ- 

 ence in the logical characters of the doctrines of 

 creation and descent 1 The facts were better 

 explained by the latter than by the former; and 

 he connected them at least tentatively with the 



1 Life and Letters, Vol. I. p. 67 ; Origin of Species, p. 2. 



