CHARLES DARWIN. 433 



similar prepossessions ; and that the Darwinian theory, legiti- 

 mately considered, bids fair to be placed in this respect upon 

 the same footing with the Copernican system. 



An English poet wrote that he awoke one morning and 

 found himself famous. When this happened to Darwin, it 

 was a genuine surprise. Although he had addressed himself 

 simply to scientific men, and had no thought of arguing his 

 case before a popular tribunal, yet " The Origin of Species " 

 was too readable a book upon too sensitive a topic to escape 

 general perusal ; and this, indeed, must in some sort have 

 been anticipated. But the avidity with which the volume was 

 taken up, and the eagerness of popular discussion which en- 

 sued, were viewed by the author — as his letters at the time 

 testify — with a sense of amused wonder at an unexpected 

 and probably transient notoriety. 



The theory he had developed was presented by a working 

 naturalist to his fellows, with confident belief that it would 

 sooner or later win acceptance from the younger and more 

 observant of these. The reason why these moderate expecta- 

 tions were much and so soon exceeded are not far to seek, 

 though they were not then obvious to the world in general. 

 Although mere speculations were mostly discountenanced by 

 the investigating naturalists of that day, yet their work and 

 their thoughts were, consciously or unconsciously, tending in 

 the direction of evolution. Even those who manfully rowed 

 against the current were more or less carried along wjth it, 

 and some of them unwittingly contributed to its force. Most 

 of them in their practical studies had worked up to, or were 

 nearly approaching, the question of the relation of the past 

 inhabitants of the earth to the present, and of the present to 

 one another, in such wise as to suggest inevitably that, some- 

 how or other, descent with modification was eventually to be 

 the explanation. This was the natural outcome of the line of 

 thought of which Lyell early became the cautious and fair- 

 minded expositor, and with which he reconstructed theoretical 

 geology. If Lyell had known as much at first hand of botany 

 or zoology as he knew of geology, it is probable that his cel- 

 ebrated chapter on the permanence of species in the " Prin- 



