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DARWIN AND HUMBOLDT. 



which has been so signally and so 

 consistently displayed by both these 

 English naturalists. But the great- 

 ness of Mr. Darwin as the reformer 

 of biology is not to be estimated by 

 the fact that he conceived the idea of 

 natural selection ; his claim to ever- 

 lasting memory rests upon the many 

 years of devoted labor whereby he 

 tested this idea in all conceivable 

 ways — amassing facts from every 

 department of science, balancing evi- 

 dence with the soundest judgment, 

 shirking no difficulty, and at last 

 astonishing the world as with a reve- 

 lation by publishing the completed 

 proof of evolution. Indeed, so co- 

 lossal is Mr. Darwin's greatness in 

 this respect, that we doubt whether 

 there ever was a man so well fitted to 

 undertake the work which he has so 

 successfully accomplished. For this 

 work required not merely vast and 

 varied knowledge of many provinces 

 of science, and the very exceptional 

 powers of judgment which Mr. Dar- 

 win possessed, but also the patience 

 to labor for many years at a great j 

 generalization, the honest candor 

 which rendered the author his 

 best critic, and last, though perhaps 

 not least, the magnanimous simplicity 

 of character which, in rising above 

 all petty and personal feelings, deliv- 

 ered a thought-reversing doctrine to 

 mankind with as little disturbance as 

 possible of the deeply-rooted senti- 

 ments of the age. In the chapter of 

 accidents, therefore, it is a singularly 

 fortunate coincidence that Mr. Dar- 

 win was the man to whom the idea of 

 natural selection occurred ; for al- 

 though in a generation or two the 

 truth of evolution might have be- 

 come more and more forced upon the 

 belief of science, and with it the ac- 

 ceptance of natural selection as an 

 operating cause, in. our own genera- 

 tion this could only have been ac- 

 complished in the way that it was 

 accomplished ; we required one such 

 exceptional mind as that of Darwin 

 to focus the facts, and to show the 

 method. 



It seems almost needless to turn 



from this aspect of our subject to 

 enlarge upon the influence which a 

 general acceptance of the theory of 

 descent has had upon biology. We 

 do not state the case too strongly 

 when we say that this has been the 

 influence which has created organiza- 

 tion out of confusion, brought the dry 

 bones to life, and made all the previ- 

 ously dissociated facts of science 

 stand up as an exceeding great army. 

 Let any one turn to the eloquent 

 prophecy with which the pages of 

 the Origin of Species terminate — a 

 prophecy which sets forth in order 

 the transforming effect that the doc- 

 trine of evolution would in the future 

 exert upon every department of biol- 

 ogy — and he may rejoice to think 

 that Mr. Darwin himself lived to 

 see every word of that prophecy ful- 

 filled. For where is now the " syste- 

 matist . . . incessantly haunted by 

 the shadowy doubt whether this or 

 that form be a true species ? " And 

 has it not proved that "the other and 

 more general departments of natural 

 history will rise greatly in interest — 

 that the terms used by naturalists, of 

 affinity, relationship, community of 

 type, paternity, morphology, adaptive 

 chai-acters, rudimentary and aborted 

 organs, etc , will cease to be metaphor- 

 ical, and will have a plain significa- 

 tion ? " Do we not indeed begin to 

 feel that " we no longer look at an 

 organic being as a savage looks at a 

 ship, as something wholly beyond his 

 comprehension'? And when we regard 

 every production of nature as one 

 which has had a long history, when 

 we contemplate every complete struc- 

 ture and instinct as the summing up 

 of many contrivances, each useful to 

 the possessor, in the same way as any 

 great mechanical invention is the 

 summing up of the labor, the experi- 

 ence, the reason, and even the blunders 

 of numerous workmen, Avhen Ave thus 

 view each organic being," may we 

 not now all say with Darwin, "How 

 far more interesting — I speak from 

 experience — does the study of natural 

 history become ? " And may we not 

 now all seo that " a grand and almost 



