1909.] CONKLIN— THE WORLD'S DEBT TO DARWIN. Iv 



observer of nature in many lands, gifted with unusual ability in col- 

 lecting, weighing and systematizing facts, endowed with a fertile 

 imagination and with great powers of generalization, and yet cau- 

 tious, slow in reaching conclusions, honest beyond all others, a man 

 who worked every day of his life to the limit of his strength — none 

 like him had ever before grappled with the mysteries of creation. 



But apart from his own peculiar fitness for this work Darwin 

 was unusually fortunate in his opportunity and his environment. 

 The world was ready for him. Lamarck, St. Hilaire, Mendel ad- 

 dressed a world not ready to receive their messages. But in 1859 

 the need of some natural explanation of the origin of species was 

 keenly felt and many naturalists were groping in the dark for some 

 rational solution of this problem. In his autobiography Darwin 

 says in explaining the success of the " Origin of Species " : 



What I believe is strictly true is that innumerable well-observed facts 

 were stored in the minds of naturalists ready to take their proper places 

 as soon as any theory which would receive them was sufificiently explained. 



The problem itself was one of the greatest which had ever been 

 raised in the history of science. Step by step miraculous inter- 

 vention in nature had been eliminated and supernaturalism had been 

 driven from astronomy and geology and embryology and had taken 

 its last great stand on the special creation of species and the super- 

 natural origin of adaptations. To many people evolution seemed to 

 be an atheistic attempt " to drive God entirely out of his universe." 

 It presumed to determine man's place in nature, and many believed 

 that if man were descended from the beasts which perish he could 

 not be a son of God. It has been said that there are two subjects 

 in which all people are interested — theology and politics. Evolu- 

 tion certainly caused a disturbance in theology and it accordingly 

 came as a shock to all Christendom. The necessity of defending it 

 before the public converted scientists into controversialists, and 

 probably no scientific theory before or since ever received so much 

 popular attention. 



Again Darwin owed very much to his friends, especially to Lyell, 

 Hooker, Huxley and Asa Gray. The idea of fighting for his theory 

 seems to have come to him only gradually after the first shock of the 



