And evolutionism is gradually though slowly filtering downward. It is permeating the daily press of the nations, and gaining for its vocabulary a recognised place in the phraseology of the unlearned vulgar. Such expressions as 'natural selection,' 'survival of the fittest,' 'struggle for existence,' 'adaptation to the environment,' and all the rest of it, are becoming as household words upon the lips of thousands who only know the name of Darwin as a butt for the petty empty jibes of infinitesimal cheap witlings. And Darwinismwill trickle down still through a thousand channels, by definite popularisation, and still more by indefinite absorption into the common thought of universal humanity, till it becomes part and parcel of the general inheritance, bred in our bone and burnt into our blood, an heir-loom of our race to all time and in all countries. Great thoughts like his do not readily die: they expand and grow in ten thousand bosoms, till they transform the world at last into their own likeness, and adapt it to the environment they have themselves created by their informing power.
Happy above ordinary human happiness, Charles Darwin lived himself to see the prosperous beginning of this great silent philosophical revolution. Harvey's grand discovery, it has been well said, was scoffed at for nearly a whole generation. Newton's marvellous law of gravitation was coldly received even by the gigantic intellect of Leibnitz himself. Francis Bacon, in disgrace and humiliation, could only commend his name and memory 'to foreign nations and to the next age.' It is too often so with thinkers of the first and highest order: it was not so, happily, with the gentle soul of Charles Darwin. Alone among the prophets and teachers of triumphant creeds, he saw with his own eyes the adoption of the faith he had been the first to promulgate in all its fulness by every fresh and powerful mind of the younger race that grew up around him. The Nestor of evolutionism, he had lived among two successive generations of thinkers, and over the third he ruled as king. With that crowning joy of a great, a noble, and a happy life, let us leave him here alone in his glory.
INDEX.AGASSIZ,17,33Anticipations of natural selection,81'Antiquity of Man,'120Astronomy,15BADEN-POWELL,78Bahia,43Bates,18; in Brazil,79; on mimicry,117'Beagle,' voyage of the,38; Zoology of,59Bell, Sir C,155Boucher de Perthes,120Brazil,43British Association,118Buffon,7CHAMBERS, Robert,18; his 'Vestiges of Creation,'70Colenso on the Pentateuch,121'Coral Reefs,'68Cuvier,12; as a geologist,13; system of animals,63DARWIN, Charles, his ancestry,20; birth,27; birthplace,31;contemporaries,33; education,34; at Edinburgh University,ib.;at Cambridge,35; starts on the voyage of the 'Beagle,'38; returns toEngland,58; publishes his journal,59; plans 'Origin of Species,'60;elected to Royal Society,64; secretary to Geological Society,64;marries,ib.; publishes 'Coral Reefs,'68; geologicalobservations,76; Monograph on Barnacles,ib.; publishes 'Originof Species,'86; its success,112; second edition,114; variation ofanimals and plants,125; pangenesis,126; fertilisation of orchids,127;'Descent of Man,'132; later works,155; last illness and death,173;character,174; place in evolutionary movement,177; outcome of his work,192.DARWIN, Erasmus,10; his life,20; appearance,21; poems,ib.;'Zoonomia',21; 'Temple of Nature,'25; his marriages,25; on descent ofman,133; on sexual selection,146Darwin, Erasmus, the younger,34Darwin, Robert,20Darwin, Robert Waring,25,26; his home,31De Candolle,63Down House, Darwin settles at,65Du Chaillu,134EARTHWORMS,66,168Edgeworth,25Evolution, general theory of,177FILHOL,168Fiske, Prof.,58; on natural selection,130Fitzroy, Captain,38Fuegians,51GALAPAGOS ISLANDS,52Galton, Francis,27Gaudry,168Geology, rise of,13; evolutionary aspect of,180Goethe,9,12; on animal origin of man,133Gorilla,134Gray, Asa,78,124HAECKEL, letter to,67; 'History of Creation,'124; on sexual selection,151Henslow, Prof.,35; recommends Darwin to Capt. Fitzroy,38; at Oxford,118Herbert, Dean,18Herschel, Sir Wm.,15Holland, Sir Henry,27Hooker, Sir Joseph,74; on catasetum,78; accepts Darwinism,117;publishes his 'Flora of Australia,'ib.Horner, Leonard,17Humboldt,33Huxley, Prof., lecture at Royal Institution,117; 'Man's Place inNature,'122; on coming of age of 'Origin of Species,'166JUSSIEU,63KANT, nebular hypothesis,15Knight's law,159Kölreuter,159LAMARCK,10; Darwin's reading of,47; on descent of man,133Laplace, nebular hypothesis,15Lecoq,18Linnæus,6; his artificial system,63Lyell,14,64; 'Principles of Geology,'69; extract from letters,78;anticipations of natural selection,99; slow acceptance of Darwinism,119; 'Antiquity of Man,'120MALTHUS,15; influence on Darwin,50,67,74,94Matthew, Patrick,18; extracts from,82Mimicry,79Monte Video, Darwin at,46Mould, formation of,66Mount, the,31Müller, Fritz,124Müller, Hermann,124Murchison,14'NATURALIST on the Amazons,'79'Naturalist's Voyage round the World' published,59Natural system,63Nebular hypothesis,15,179New Zealand, Darwin at,54OKEN,17'Origin of Species,' first planned,60; projected,78; published,86;analysis of,89; its success,112; second edition,114Owen, Sir R.,33,59; on types,78PANGENESIS,126'Philosophie Zoologique,'12Population, Malthus's essay on,16,51Powell, Baden-,78'Physiological Units,'126Psychology, evolution in,183RAFINESQUE,69Rio Janeiro, Darwin at,45ST. HILAIRE, Geoffroy,9; the younger,77St. Paul's Rocks,43Sexual selection, first glimpse of,45; Darwin's theory of,144Smith, William,13Sociology,183Spencer, Herbert,17; on 'Vestiges of Creation,'72; essay in the'Leader,'77; 'Principles of Psychology,'ib.; essay in'Westminster Review,'84; extracts from 'Leader' essay,88; acceptsDarwin's theory,118; 'Principles of Biology,'ib.; 'PhysiologicalUnits,'126; theory of evolution,191Sprengel,103,158THOMPSON, Allen,163Treviranus,17Tucutuco,47Tyndall, Prof.,163'VESTIGES of Creation,'18; criticism of,70Von Baer,18Von Buch,18WALLACE, Alfred Russel,18; goes to Brazil,79; publishes his travels,80;in Malay archipelago,ib.; discovers natural selection,ib.;paper at Linnean Society,81; on sexual selection,153Wedgwood, Emma,65Wedgwood, Hensleigh,27Wedgwood, Josiah,27,28Wedgwood, Susannah,27Wells, Dr., anticipates natural selection,81White, Gilbert, on worms,169Wollaston,18Worms, action of,66,168Wright, Chauncey,124'ZOONOMIA,' Erasmus Darwin's,22