460 Charles Darwin. 



tare are the growth of centuries; but Darwinismus had filled 

 shelves and alcoves and teeming catalogues while the unremit- 

 ting author was still supplying new and ever novel subjects for 

 comment. The technical term which he chose for a designa- 

 tion of his theory, and several of the phrases originated in ex- 

 engrafted into his mother tongue, and even into other lan- 

 guages, and are turned to use in common as well as in philo- 

 sophical discourse, without sense of strangeness. 



Wonderful indeed is the difference between the reception 

 accorded to Darwin and that met with by his predecessor, La- 

 marck. But a good deal has happened since Lamarck's day : 

 wide fields of evidence were open to Darwin which were wholly 

 unknown to his forerunner ; and the time had come when the 

 subject of the origin and connection of living forms could be 

 taken up as a research rather than as a speculation. Philoso- 

 phizes on evolution have not been rare ; but Darwin was not 

 one of them. He was a scientific investigator, — a philosopher, 

 if you please, but one of the type of Galileo. Indeed very 

 much what Galileo was to physical science in his time, Darwin 

 is to biological science in ours. This without reference to the 

 fact that the writings of both conflicted with religious prepos- 

 sessions ; and that the Darwinian theory, legitimately con- 

 sidered, bids fair to be placed in this respect upon the same 

 footing with the Copernican system. 



An English poet wrote that he awoke one morning and 

 found himself famous. When this happened to Darwin, it was 

 a genuine surprise. Although he had addressed himself simply 

 to scientific men, and had no thought of arguing his case before 

 a popular tribunal, yet " The Origin of Species" was too read- 

 able a book upon too sensitive a topic to escape general peru- 

 sal ; and this, indeed, must in some sort have been anticipated. 

 But the avidity with which the volume was taken up, and the 

 eagerness of popular discussion which ensued, were viewed by 

 the author,— as his letters at the time testify, — with a sense 

 of amused wonder at an unexpected and probably transient 

 notoriety. 



The theory he had developed was presented by a working 

 naturalist to his fellows, with confident belief that it would 



