THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN BIOLOGY 



tion," and the "survival of the fittest," through "nat- 

 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 Dar- 

 win. 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 provi- 

 sion 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 achieve- 

 ments 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. Gradually 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 delay, 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. 



And then a strange thing happened. After Darwin 

 had been at work on his " abstract " about two years, 



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