ix 



last two years, and if yon take plenty of books with you, anything 

 you please may be done." (I, p. 193.) The state of the case could not 

 have been better pnt. Assuredly the young naturalist's theoretical 

 and practical scientific training had gone no further than might 

 suffice for the ontfit of an intelligent collector and notetaker. He 

 was fully conscious of the fact, and his ambition hardly rose above 

 the hope that he should bring back materials for the scientific 

 " lions " at home of sufficient excellence to prevent them from 

 turning and rending him. (I, p. 248.) 



But a fourth educational experiment was to be tried. This time 

 Nature took him in hand herself and showed him the way by which, 

 to borrow Henslow's prophetic phrase, " anything he pleased might 

 be done." 



The conditions of life presented by a ship-of-war of only 242 tons 

 burthen, would not, prima facie, appear to be so favourable to intellec- 

 tual development as those offered by the cloistered retirement of 

 Christ's College. Darwin had not even a cabin to himself ; while, in 

 addition to the hindrances and interruptions incidental to sea-life, 

 which can be appreciated only by those who have had experience of 

 them, sea-sickness came on whenever the little ship was "lively"; and, 

 considering the circumstances of the cruise, that must have been her 

 normal state. Nevertheless, Darwin fonnd on board the " Beadle " 

 that which neither the pedagogues of Shrewsbury, nor the profes- 

 soriate of Edinburgh, nor the tutors of Cambridge had managed to 

 give him. " I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first real 

 training or education of my mind (I, p. 61) ;" and in a letter, written 

 as he was leaving England, he calls the voyage on which he was 

 starting, with just insight, his " second life." (1, p. 214.) Happily 

 for Darwin's education, the school-time of the "Beagle" lasted five 

 years instead of two; and the countries which the ship visited were 

 singularly well fitted to provide him with object-lessons on the nature 

 of things of the greatest valne. 



While at sea, he diligently collected, studied, and made copious 

 notes upon the surface Fauna. But with no previous training in 

 dissection, hardly any power of drawing, and next to no knowledge 

 of comparative anatomy, his occupation with work of this kind — 

 notwithstanding all his zeal and industry — resulted, for the most part, 

 in a vast accumulation of useless manuscript. Some acquaintance 

 •with the marine Crustacea, observations on Tlanarios, and on the 

 ubiquitous Sagitta, seem to have been the chief results of a great 

 amount of labour in this direction. 



It was otherwise with the terrestrial phenomena which came under 

 the voyager's notice : and Geology very soon took her revenge for the 

 scorn which the much-bored Edinburgh student had poured upon her. 

 Three weeks after leaving England the ship touched land for the 



