IX 
THE DEBT OF SCIENCE TO DARWIN 
473 
ing facts and making fresh, observations, the final result being 
to elevate one of the humblest and most despised of the 
animal creation to the position of an important agent in the 
preparation of the earth for the use and enjoyment of the 
higher animals and of man. 
The sketch now given of Darwin’s work, though it may have 
seemed tedious to the reader by its length, is yet in many 
respects imperfect, since it has given no account of those 
earlier important labours which would alone have made the 
reputation of a lesser man. None but the greatest geologists 
have produced more instructive works than the two volumes 
of Geological Observations, and the profound and original essay 
“ On the Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs ” ; the 
most distinguished zoologists and anatomists might be proud 
of the elaborate “ Monograph of the Cirripedia,” of which a 
competent judge says : <e The prodigious number and minute 
accuracy of his dissections, the exhaustive detail with which 
he worked out every branch of his subject — sparing no pains 
in procuring every species that it was possible to procure, in 
collecting all the known facts relating to the geographical and 
geological distribution of the group, in tracing all the compli- 
cated history of the metamorphoses presented by the indivi- 
duals of the sundry species, in disentangling the problem of 
the homologies of these perplexing animals, etc. — all combine to 
show that, had Mr. Darwin chosen to devote himself to a life 
of morphological work, his name would probably have been 
second to none in that department of biology,” 1 while the 
numerous researches on the fertilisation and structure of 
flowers and the movements of plants, would alone place him 
in the rank of a profound and original investigator in botanical 
science. 
Estimate of Darwin’s Life-Work 
Yet these works, great as is each of them separately, and, 
taken altogether, amazing as the production of one man, sink 
into insignificance as compared with the vast body of research 
and of thought of which the Origin of Species is the brief 
epitome, and with which alone the name of Darwin is 
associated by the mass of educated men. I have here 
1 Nature , vol. xxvi. p. 99. 
