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TROPICAL NATURE 
IX 
endeavoured, however imperfectly, to enable non-specialists 
to judge of the character and extent of this work, and of the 
vast revolution it has effected in our conception of nature, — 
a revolution altogether independent of the question whether 
the theory of “ natural selection ” is or is not as important a 
factor in bringing about changes of animal and vegetable 
forms as its author maintained. Let us consider for a 
moment the state of mind induced by the new theory and 
that which preceded it. So long as men believed that every 
species was the immediate handiwork of the Creator, and was 
therefore absolutely perfect, they remained altogether blind 
to the meaning of the countless variations and adaptations of 
the parts and organs of plants and animals. They who were 
always repeating, parrot-like, that every organism was exactly 
adapted to its conditions and surroundings by an all -wise 
being, were apparently dulled or incapacitated by this belief 
from any inquiry into the inner meaning of what they saw 
around them, and were content to pass over whole classes of 
facts as inexplicable, and to ignore countless details of structure 
under vague notions of a “general plan,” or of variety and 
beauty being “ ends in themselves ” ; while he whose teachings 
were at first stigmatised as degrading or even atheistical, by 
devoting to the varied phenomena of living things the loving, 
patient, and reverent study of one who really had faith in the 
beauty and harmony and perfection of creation, was enabled 
to bring to light innumerable hidden adaptations, and to prove 
that the most insignificant parts of the meanest living things 
had a use and a purpose, were worthy of our earnest study, 
and fitted to excite our highest and most intelligent admiration. 
That he has done this is the sufficient answer to his critics 
and to his few detractors. However much our knowledge of 
nature may advance in the future, it will certainly be by 
following in the pathways he has made clear for us ; and for 
long years to come the name of Darwin will stand for the 
typical example of what the student of nature ought to be. 
And if we glance back over the whole domain of science, we 
shall find none to stand beside him as equals ; for in him we 
find a patient observation and collection of facts, as in Tycho 
Brahe * the power of using those facts in the determination of 
laws, as in Kepler, combined with the inspirational genius of a 
