26 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
in the person of his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood, Jr. 
Together they persuaded the father of the propriety 
of giving to Charles this opportunity to follow out his 
real tastes and ambitions. Accordingly, at the age of 
twenty-two, we find him embarked on a journey 
around the world. In the cabin of the Beagle he had 
abundant time, in his long sail across the Atlantic, to 
read the two volumes of Lyell’s “Elements of Geol- 
ogy,” which Henslow had handed him, with the he sug- 
gestion that he read it, but on no account | believe it. 
Filled with the love of geology as Darwin was, this 
epoch-making book was exactly the stimulus needed. 
Lyell had just begun to persuade the world that to 
understand the past we must study the present. In 
the forces now at work he saw cause enough to ac- 
count for all the history of the past of the earth. 
There is little doubt that this book was one of the 
most potent factors in determining the bent of Dar- 
win’s mind. His entire educational experience had 
failed to appeal to him. It is fortunate, we now 
know, that this was the case. If the university course 
of the time had really seized him it would have made 
but one more student like hundreds it was turning out 
each year. For most of us this is the happy event. 
Now and then comes the rare spirit to whom all of 
this fails to appeal because he is ready for something 
better. Such was the spirit of Charles Darwin. He 
