198  Centenary  of  Charles  Darwin.  {^ApXim™' 
on  plants  and  animals  under  domestication,  and  his  observations, 
together  with  those  of  others  on  the  marked  improvement  brought 
about  by  man's  selection,  confirmed  him  in  this  view.  To  this  topic 
alone  he  devoted  two  volumes  under  the  title  "  Variation  of  Animals 
and  Plants  Under  Domestication." 
In  enunciating  his  doctrine  of  natural  selection,  or  the  Survival 
of  the  Fittest,  as  Herbert  Spencer  termed  it,  Darwin  was  strongly 
assailed  on  all  sides,  even  by  naturalists  and  scientists  themselves,  as 
up  until  that  time  the  majority  of  naturalists  believed  that  species 
were  fixed  and  distinct  creations,  not  even  Lyell  or  Hooker  having 
previously  considered  that  species  were  mutable.  Fortunately,  he 
was  supported  by  Alfred  Russell  Wallace  who  had  simultaneously 
arrived  at  the  same  conclusion,  Huxley,  Asa  Gray,  Hooker,  Spencer, 
and  others.  To-day  we  have  neo-Darwinians,  Lamarckians,  neo- 
Lamarckians,  mutationists,  Weismannians  and  Mendelians,  and  so 
on, — all  battering  away  at  Darwin's  doctrines  of  heredity  and  evolu- 
tion, but  these  doctrines  bid  fair  to  stand  for  an  indefinite  period. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Darwin's  work  has  formed  the 
basis  of  a  newer  geology,  botany  and  zoology.  His  book  on  the 
"  Descent  of  Man "  has  been  the  basis  in  the  development  of 
anthropology ;  while  his  book  on  il  The  Expression  of  the  Emotions 
in  Man  and  Animals  "  has  made  a  rational  psychology  possible,  and 
the  celebrated  geologist,  Geikie,  said,  "  No  man  of  his  time  exercised 
upon  the  science  of  geology  a  profounder  influence  than  Charles 
Darwin." 
Darwin  touched  life  at  every  point.  Like  Aristotle,  he  believed 
that  the  essence  of  a  living  thing  is  not  what  it  is  made  of,  nor  what 
it  does,  but  why  it  does  it.  His  love  of  science  was  great,  as  he  twice 
states  in  his  Autobiography.  In  addition  to  this,  his  ambition  was 
to  be  esteemed  by  fellow  naturalists  like  Lyell  and  Hooker,  caring 
nothing  for  public  applause,  although  pleased  if  his  works  were 
understood  or  appreciated.  Twenty  per  cent,  of  his  life  was  made 
up  of  years  of  illness,  and  he  conserved  his  time  so  that  no  moment 
was  wasted.  Poulton  has  recently  suggested  that  it  was  largely 
because  of  the  relatively  few  hours  a  day  that  he  could  work,  he  gave 
up  his  interest  in  poetry,  music  and  art  in  later  life. 
He  attached  relatively  little  importance  to  priority  of  discovery, 
and  said  of  some  of  his  fundamental  discoveries  which  had  given 
him  great  satisfaction,  and  which  were  subsequently  worked  out 
more  fully,  that  if  he  failed  to  impress  his  readers  he  who  succeeds  in 
