Charles Robert Darwin. 33 



an essay — it is very brief — published by Mr. Spencer in 

 1852, seven years before the appearance of the " Origin of 

 Species." It would disabuse them almost harshly of their 

 absurd idea. They will find that Darwin never stated the 

 general doctrine of development in a more comprehensive 

 manner. If Darwin's claim to an original discovery rested 

 upon his general doctrine of development, this essay would 

 dispose of it forever. But it rests upon subordinate 

 grounds. Undoubtedly his leading proposition is the unity 

 of all organic life, and undoubtedly the importance of his 

 book is greatly owing to the confirmation which it brings 

 to this. But the characteristic work of Darwin was indi- 

 cated by the title of his book, " The Origin of Species by 

 Means of Natural Selection." Not, so to speak, the ivhat 

 of family relationship between all plants and all animals, 

 past, present, and to be, but the how of this relationship 

 was what he set himself to show. Before his time the fact 

 of such relationship was only a brilliant guess — or hardly 

 more than this. Spencer had indicated some of the lines 

 on which the argument must advance, — the difficulty of dis- 

 tinguishing species from varieties, the changes which va- 

 rious embryos undergo, the analogy of artificial variations. 

 But there was no massing of the facts along these lines. 

 There was this in Darwin's work, but over and above all 

 this was the central purpose of the book: to show that 

 species had originated by the preservation of favored races 

 in the struggle for existence by means of natural selection. 

 He did not contend that natural selection was the only 

 means by which new species had originated, but he claimed 

 for it a great and leading part, and he supported his claim 

 by an array of evidence which commanded the respect of 

 the intelligent, if it did not at once produce conviction. 



The theory of Darwin received not long ago a mortal 

 wound, — the last of several thousands, — from a great ex- 

 pounder of religion in New York, who declares that he 

 would rather look for his ancestors in the Garden of Eden 

 than in a zoological garden. The animals in the zoological 

 garden would not, perhaps, regret a preference that is sure, 

 if acted on, to leave their " great attractions " more un- 

 rivaled ; but the remark is painfully significant of the av- 

 erage view of Darwin's teachings. It is commonly imag- 

 ined, thanks to the teachers of the popular theology in no 

 small degree, that Darwin's " Origin of Species " was de- 



