INTRODUCTORY 11 



that nine out of ten of us would doubtless have 

 subscribed to them ; and that most of us doubtless 

 now subscribe to ideas which may seem equally 

 childish to our children's children. 



Nevertheless, the advent of the truth was delayed. 

 One independent young thinker, indeed, dared in 

 1852 to write an essay called the "Development 

 Hypothesis," in which he boldly declared himself 

 against the accepted theory, which still flourished 

 under the protecting names of such distinguished 

 naturalists as Cuvier and Sir Richard Owen. But 

 Herbert Spencer's advocacy did not then effect 

 anything. 



Meanwhile, however, Charles Robert Darwin, the 

 greatest biologist of any age, was collecting facts 

 that bore on the question of the origin of species. 

 It was in 1839 that he first began to doubt the 

 current theory and opened his " first note-book " for 

 facts bearing thereon. Spencer's acceptance of the 

 "development hypothesis" was mainly due to his 

 perception that it was the only alternative to the 

 "special creation" hypothesis, which seemed to 

 him unthinkable, " a mere formulation of ignorance 

 into the semblance of knowledge." Darwin's doubt 

 of the orthodox theory had its origin in the facts 

 of animal and vegetable life which he observed 

 during an early voyage to South America. But 

 the "development hypothesis" — it was not until 

 1857 that Spencer introduced the word evolution — 

 was in need of more support than any one had 

 hitherto afforded it. 



Now Darwin, being a thinker, found his recreation 

 in works the reading of which most of us would 



