Xl THE DARWIN CENTENARY. [Februarys, 



perhaps only solvable by the miracle of special and supernatural 

 creation. Darwin wro'te in his autobiography : 



It has sometimes been said that the success of the " Origin " proved 

 " that the subject was in the air," or " that men's minds were prepared for 

 it." I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a 

 few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed 

 to doubt about the permanence of species. 



In 1844 he wrote to Hooker: 



I have been now, ever since my return (from the voyage round the 

 world), engaged in a very presumptious work, and I know not one indi- 

 vidual who would not say a very foolish one. I was so struck with the 

 distribution of the Galapagos organispis, etc., and with the character of the 

 American mammifers, etc., that I determined to collect blindly every sort of 

 fact which could bear in any way on what are called species. I have read 

 heaps of agricultural and horticultural books and have never ceased col- 

 lecting facts. At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced 

 (quite contrary to the opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like 

 confessing a murder) immutable. Heaven forfend me from Lamarck's 

 nonsense of a " tendency to progression," " adaptation through the slow 

 willing of animals," etc. ! But the conclusions I am led to are not widely 

 different from his, though the means of change are wholly so. I think I have 

 found out (here's presumption) the simple way in which species become 

 exquisitely adapted to various ends. You will now groan and think to 

 yourself, " on what a man I have been wasting my time and writing to." 

 I should five years ago have thought so. 



This single extract reveals the general opinions of naturalists 

 on the subject of species before the publication of Darwin's work. 

 We should never forget that in spite of all the theories and specu- 

 lations on evolution which preceded Darwin it was still commonly 

 believed before 1859 that species had arisen by supernatural crea- 

 tion, that the question of their origin was not therefore a scientific 

 problem, but that it was the one great exception to the reign of 

 natural causes in the natural world. It detracts nothing from Dar- 

 win's preeminent services to say that he was not the first to pro- 

 pose the doctrine of the evolution of species. What is much more 

 important is that he was the first to establish it ; he brought a dead 

 speculation to life and gave it scientific standing, so that it is now 

 accepted by practically everybody, and in all justice the credit of 

 this greatest intellectual achievement of the past century belongs 

 to him. The world-wide difference between Darwin and his pre- 



