DARWIN'S SURE JUDGEMENT 45 



aware of the widespread large variations upon 

 which the mutationist relies. He had the material 

 before him, he formed his judgement upon it, and 

 on this memorable day it seems specially appro- 

 priate to show how extraordinarily sure his scien- 

 tific instincts were wont to be. This wUl be 

 made clear by a few examples of the solutions 

 which Darwin found for problems which at the 

 time had either not been attempted at all or had 

 been very differently interpreted. 



Darwin's explanation of coral islands and atolls, 

 at first generally accepted, was afterwards called 

 in question. Finally, the conclusive test of a 

 deep boring entirely confirmed the original theory. 

 Perhaps the most remarkable case is that of the 

 permanence of ocean basins and continental 

 areas, a view which Darwin maintained single- 

 handed in Europe, although supported by Dana 

 in America, against Lyell, Forbes, Wallace, 

 Hooker and aU others who had written on the 

 subject, Darwin considered it mere waste of 

 time to speculate about the origin of life ; we 

 might as well, he said, speculate about the origin 

 of matter. Nothing hitherto discovered has 

 shaken this opinion, which is expressed almost 

 in Darwin's words in Prof. Arrhenius' recent 

 work.^ In the fascinating subject of geographical 

 distribution we now know that Darwin antici- 

 pated Edward Forbes in explaining the alpine 

 arctic forms as relics of the glacial period (see 



' Worlds in the making. English transl., London (1908), 218. 



