CHAPTER II 
DarwIN AND WALLACE 
WE have seen in the last chapter that whenever 
men have actively thought they have attempted to 
explain the origin of plants and animals as well as 
of themselves. No one who wrote previous to the 
time of Charles Darwin had expressed any idea con- 
cerning this matter with force enough to convince 
any large portion of the thinking world. If Lamarck 
had fallen on better times, if the great Cuvier had not 
laughed him to scorn, if Goethe had found him out 
and made him known to the world, evolution might 
have come into its own sooner. None of these con- 
ditions arose, and it remained for Charles Darwin 
to give to the world in clear and cogent form the 
thought of evolution. He gathered so much material 
before he expressed his opinions, and looked at the 
matter from so many sides that, when he published 
his results, he had foreseen most of the objections 
which were subsequently to arise in opposition to his 
announcement. Charles Darwin is recognized to-day 
as the father of the evolutionary movement. 
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