Chapter XI: Part 11

Lyell wrote to Darwin concerning this book: "It is all true, but do not flatter yourself that you will be believed till you are growing bald, like me, with hard work and vexation at the incredulity of the world."

Darwin's next work, on the "Volcanic Islands Visited during the Voyage of the Beagle," was published in 1844. This book, he said, "cost me eighteen months." His third geological book, "Geological Observations on South America," was published in 1846.

Meantime, tired of smoky London, Darwin purchased a home in Down, a retired village five or six hundred feet above the sea. The house was a square brick building, of three stories, vine-covered, in the midst of eighteen acres. "Its chief merit," Darwin writes to a friend, "is its extreme rurality. I think I was never in a more perfectly quiet country." Here, for forty years, Darwin lived the isolated life of a student, producing the books that made him the most noted scientist of his century. Of these years, Mr. Darwin said: "Few persons can have lived a more retired life than we have done. Besides short visits to the houses of relations, and occasionally to the seaside or elsewhere, we have gone nowhere. During the first part of our residence we went a little into society, and received a few friends here; but my health almost always suffered from the excitement.... I have, therefore, been compelled for many years to give up all dinner parties.... From the same cause I have been able to invite here very few scientific acquaintances. My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout life has been scientific work; and the excitement from such work makes me for the time forget, or drives quite away, my daily discomfort."

At Down, Darwin worked for eight years on two large volumes concerning cirripedia (barnacles), describing all the known living species; the extinct species, or fossil cirripedes, were in two smaller volumes. The first books were published by the Ray Society, between 1851 and 1854; the others by the Palaeontographical Society. About two years out of the eight were lost through illness. Sometimes he became half discouraged. He wrote a friend, "I have been so steadily going downhill, I cannot help doubting whether I can ever crawl a little uphill again. Unless I can, enough to work a little, I hope my life may be very short, for to lie on a sofa all day and do nothing but give trouble to the best and kindest of wives and good, dear children is dreadful."

Darwin doubted, in after life, "whether the work was worth the consumption of so much time," but Professor Huxley thinks he "never did a wiser thing than when he devoted himself to the years of patient toil which the cirriped-book cost him.... The value of the cirriped monograph lies not merely in the fact that it is a very admirable piece of work, and constituted a great addition to positive knowledge, but still more in the circumstance that it was a piece of critical self-discipline, the effect of which manifested itself in everything he wrote afterwards, and saved him from endless errors of detail." Darwin's patient labor is shown by his working "for the last half-month, daily, in dissecting a little animal about the size of a pin's head, from the Chonos archipelago, and I could spend another month, and daily see more beautiful structure."

During these years from 1846 to 1854, death had twice disturbed the quiet life at Down. In 1849, Dr. Darwin died, and his son Charles was so ill that he could not attend the funeral. In 1851, Annie Darwin died, at the age of ten, after a brief illness. "She was," said Darwin, "my favorite child; her cordiality, openness, buoyant joyousness, and strong affections made her most lovable.... When quite a baby, this [strong affection] showed itself in never being easy without touching her mother when in bed with her; and quite lately she would, when poorly, fondle for any length of time one of her mother's arms.... She would at almost any time spend half an hour in arranging my hair, 'making it,' as she called it, 'beautiful,' or in smoothing, the poor, dear darling, my collar or cuffs--in short, in fondling me.... Her whole mind was pure and transparent. One felt one knew her thoroughly and could trust her. I always thought that, come what might, we should have had, in our old age, at least one loving soul which nothing could have changed.

"All her movements were vigorous, active, and usually graceful. When going round the Sandwalk with me, although I walked fast, yet she often used to go before, pirouetting in the most elegant way, her dear face bright all the time with the sweetest smiles. Occasionally she had a pretty coquettish manner towards me, the memory of which is charming....

"In the last short illness her conduct, in simple truth, was angelic. She never once complained; never became fretful; was ever considerate of others, and was thankful in the most gentle, pathetic manner for everything done for her. When so exhausted that she could hardly speak, she praised everything that was given her, and said some tea 'was beautifully good.' When I gave her some water, she said, 'I quite thank you;' and these, I believe, were the last precious words ever addressed by her dear lips to me."

Such consideration and politeness she naturally inherited. Francis Darwin says in his delightful life of his father, "He always spoke to servants with politeness, using the expression, 'Would you be so good,' in asking for anything. In business matters he was equally courteous. His solicitor, who had never met him, said, 'Everything I did was right, and everything was profusely thanked for.'" Of the drawings made by his children, he would say, "Michael Angelo is nothing to it!" but he always looked carefully at the work and kindly pointed out mistakes.

"He received," says his son, "many letters from foolish, unscrupulous people, and all of these received replies. He used to say that if he did not answer them, he had it on his conscience afterwards, and, no doubt, it was in great measure the courtesy with which he answered every one which produced the universal and widespread sense of his kindness of nature which was so evident on his death."

In November, 1853, Darwin received the Royal Society's Medal. He was gratified, finding it "a pleasant little stimulus. When work goes badly, and one ruminates that all is vanity, it is pleasant to have some tangible proof that others have thought something of one's labors."

November 24, 1859, when Darwin was fifty, his great work, "Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life," was published. For twenty years he had been making experiments with plants and animals, and filling his note-books with facts. To his old classmate, Fox, he writes asking that the boys in his school gather lizards' eggs, as well as those of snakes. "My object is," he says, "to see whether such eggs will float on sea-water, and whether they will keep alive thus floating for a month or two in my cellar. I am trying experiments on transportation of all organic beings that I can; and lizards are found on every island, and therefore I am very anxious to see whether their eggs stand sea-water." Again he writes, asking Fox for ducklings and dorkings; "The chief point which I am and have been for years very curious about is to ascertain whether the _young_ of our domestic breeds differ as much from each other as do their parents, and I have no faith in anything short of actual measurement and the Rule of Three.... I have got my fan-tails and pouters in a grand cage and pigeon-house, and they are a decided amusement to me, and delight to H."

Of this book, Darwin himself says: "I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory--collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed inquiries, by conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants....

"In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read 'Malthus on Population,' and, being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species.... But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance.... This problem is the tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed under genera, genera under families, families under sub-orders, and so forth.... The solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature."

The book was written slowly, each chapter requiring at least three months. When the "Origin of Species"--which had reached its thirty-third thousand in 1888--was published, it created the most profound sensation throughout the thinking world. Heretofore, most men of science had believed that each species had been separately created by the Almighty,--that species were immutable, unchanging.

Mr. Darwin, by twenty years of study, proved to his own mind, and now to most of the world, that there has been a gradual evolution, through unnumbered ages, of one form of animal life from another. He said, "Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on the earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."

The theory of evolution was not original with Darwin. Lamarck, in 1801, published his "Organization of Living Bodies," in which he stated his belief "that nature, in all the long ages during which the world has existed, may have produced the different kinds of plants and animals by gradually enlarging one part and diminishing another to suit the wants of each." Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, Goethe, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles, all believed that species are descended from other species, and in various ways improved.

Some of the reasons for the belief in evolution are so simply and clearly stated by Arabella B. Buckley, in her "Short History of Natural Science," that I quote her words:--

"_All the Animals of each class are formed on the same plan_....

"Why should the animals of one class (such as the vertebrate or back-boned class) be formed all on one plan, even to the most minute bones; so that the wing of a bat, the front leg of a horse, the hand of a man, and the flapper of a porpoise, are all made of the same bones, which have either grown together, or lengthened and spread apart, according to the purpose they serve? And, more curious still, why should some animals have parts which are of no use to them, but only seem to be there because other animals of the same class also have them? Thus the whale has teeth like the other mammalia, but they never pierce through the gum; and the boa-constrictor has the beginnings of hind legs, hidden under its skin, though they never grow out. Here, again, it seems extraordinary, if a boa-constrictor and a whale were created separately, that they should be made with organs which are quite useless; while, on the other hand, if they were descended from the same ancestor, as other reptiles and mammalia who have teeth and hind legs, they might be supposed to have inherited these organs....

"_Embryos of animals alike in Structure._

"Another still more remarkable fact was that pointed out by Von Baer, that the higher animals, such as quadrupeds, before they are perfectly formed, cannot be distinguished from the embryos of other and lower animals, such as fish and reptiles. If animals were created separately, why should a dog begin like a fish, a lizard, and a bird, and have at first parts which it loses as it grows into its own peculiar form?

"_Living animals of a country agree with the fossil ones_....

"We know that certain animals are only found in particular countries; kangaroos and pouched animals, for example, in Australia, and sloths and armadillos in South America. Now, it is remarkable that all the fossil quadrupeds in Australia are also pouched animals, though they are of different kinds and larger in size than those now living; and in the same way different species of sloth and armadillos are found fossil in South America; while in the rocks of Europe fossil mammalia are found, only slightly different from those which are living there now." It seems natural to conclude that the living have descended from the fossils.

The study of the rocks has produced other "missing links" in the succession of animal life. Professor Huxley, in some lectures given in New York in 1876, described the Hesperornis, found in the western rocks,--a huge bird, five or six feet in length, with teeth like a reptile. In England a fossil reptile has been found, the Archaeopteryx, having a reptile-like tail, with a fringe of feathers on each side, and teeth, "occupying a midway place between a bird and a reptile." Flying reptiles have been found, and reptiles which walked on their hind legs. Those who have visited Yale and Amherst Colleges must have seen the huge bird-tracks or reptile foot-prints taken from the rocks in the Connecticut valley.

Professor Huxley showed the probable descent of the horse with its hoofed foot from the extinct three-toed Hipparion of Europe, and that from the four-toed Orohippus of the Eocene formation. He declared it probable that a five-toed horse would be found, and Professor Marsh, in the West, has found the Eohippus, corresponding very nearly to Professor Huxley's description.

The question among naturalists was, "How can plants and animals have become thus changed?" Darwin showed how it was possible to effect most of these changes by "natural selection," or the choosing of the best to survive in the struggle for existence. As man by grafting secures the finest fruit, and by care in animal life the swiftest horses for speed as well as the strongest for labor, so nature selects her best for the higher development of the race.

Darwin says, "There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five years, and, at this rate, in less than a thousand years there would literally not be standing-room for his progeny.... The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals; it will be safest to assume that it begins breeding when thirty years old, and goes on breeding till ninety years old, bringing forth six young in the interval, and surviving till one hundred years old; if this be so, after a period of from 740 to 750 years, there would be nearly nineteen million elephants alive, descended from the first pair."

In various ways the weakest are destroyed. Darwin, on a piece of ground three feet long and two wide, says, "I marked all the seedlings of our native weeds as they came up, and, out of 357, no less than 295 were destroyed, chiefly by slugs and insects."

He gives this interesting instance of the struggle for existence. "I find from experiments that humble-bees are almost indispensable to the fertilization of the heart's-ease, for other bees do not visit this flower.... Humble-bees alone visit red clover, as other bees cannot reach the nectar.... Hence we may infer as highly probable that, if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heart's-ease and red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great measure upon the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; the number of mice is largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats." Hence, as Mr. Darwin shows, the frequency of certain flowers in a district may depend upon the number of cats!

Darwin showed, by most interesting experiments with pigeons, that the various breeds come from the wild rock-pigeon; that dogs are descended, probably, from the wolf; that different varieties can be produced and perpetuated under changing conditions of life; that species are only well marked and permanent varieties. He showed how organs can be changed by use or disuse; such as, the erect ears of wild animals become drooping under domestication; or moles have only rudimentary eyes, covered with skin or fur, because not needed for sight.

In the "Origin of Species," the theory of evolution received proof which was so nearly incontrovertible that the subject was brought prominently before the world as never before. Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, an able scientist, came to the same conclusion as Darwin in regard to the power of "Natural Selection," and published, at the same time as the "Origin," an essay "On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type."

At once Darwin was attacked from every quarter. Probably not since Galileo showed that the earth moves round the sun has a man been so censured and persecuted for his opinions as was Darwin. He was declared atheistic, unsettling the Christian belief, and opposed to the teachings of the Bible. Professor Asa Gray of Cambridge, Mass., a devoted Christian and able scientist, defended and explained Darwin's views, now published in "Darwiniana," claiming that the doctrine of evolution is in no wise opposed to the power and goodness of the Almighty, and quotes Charles Kingsley's words: "We know of old that God was so wise that he could make all things; but behold, he is so much wiser than even that, that he can make all things make themselves." Kingsley wrote Darwin: "I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity to believe that he created primal forms capable of self-development into all forms needful _pro tempore_ and _pro loco_, as to believe that he required a fresh act of intervention to supply the _lacunas_ which he himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought." Gray believed that "to do any work by an instrument must require, and therefore presuppose, the exertion rather of more than of less power than to do it directly." Darwin said, "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, have been and are being evolved." Darwin always felt grateful to Asa Gray for his defence. He wrote him: "I declare that you know my book as well as I do myself; and bring to the question new lines of illustration and argument, in a manner which excites my astonishment and almost my envy!... I said, in a former letter, that you were a lawyer, but I made a gross mistake; I am sure that you are a poet. No, I will tell you what you are, a hybrid, a complex cross of lawyer, poet, naturalist, and theologian!"

Darwin wisely made no reply to his critics. He said, years later: "My views have often been grossly misrepresented, bitterly opposed and ridiculed, but this has been generally done, as I believe, in good faith. On the whole, I do not doubt that my works have been over and over again greatly overpraised. I rejoice that I have avoided controversies, and this I owe to Lyell, who, many years ago, in reference to my geological works, strongly advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good, and caused a miserable loss of time and temper.

"Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself, 'that I have worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than this.'"

The "Origin" has been translated into French, German, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Swedish, and many other languages. Huxley says of it, "Even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands since the publication of Newton's 'Principia' is Darwin's 'Origin of Species.'"

The year after the "Origin" was published, Darwin began arranging his notes for his two large volumes, "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," which, however, were not published till 1868. On these two books he spent over four years. They are a wonderful collection of facts, gathered from books and from his own marvellous experiments and observations, confirming and illustrating the law of "Natural Selection" given in the "Origin."

Darwin had already received the Copley medal of the Royal Society, the greatest honor a scientific man can receive in England, and the Prussian Order "Pour le Merite," founded by Frederick II. The order consists of thirty German members and a few distinguished foreigners. In 1862 the "Fertilization of Orchids" was published, which, required ten months of labor. In this work Darwin took the utmost delight. He wrote to a friend who had sent him some of these flowers: "It is impossible to thank you enough. I was almost mad at the wealth of Orchids.... I never was more interested in any subject in my life than in this of Orchids." The peculiarities of the flowers therein described, as Darwin says, "transcend in an incomparable manner the contrivances and adaptations which the most fertile imagination of man could invent."

In the "Origin" he describes an orchid which "has part of its labellum or lower lip hollowed out into a great bucket, into which drops of almost pure water continually fall from two secreting horns which stand above it; and when the bucket is half full the water overflows by a spout on one side. The basal part of the labellum stands over the bucket, and is itself hollowed out into a sort of chamber with two lateral entrances; within this chamber there are curious fleshy ridges. The most ingenious man, if he had not witnessed what takes place, could never have imagined what purpose all these parts serve. But Dr. Crueger saw crowds of large humble-bees visiting the gigantic flowers of this orchid, not in order to suck nectar, but to gnaw off the ridges within the chamber above the bucket; in doing this they frequently pushed each other into the bucket, and, their wings being thus wetted, they could not fly away, but were compelled to crawl out through the passage formed by the spout or overflow.... The passage is narrow, and is roofed over by the column, so that a bee, in forcing its way out, first rubs its back against the viscid stigma and then against the viscid glands of the pollen-masses. The pollen-masses are thus glued to the back of the bee which first happens to crawl out through the passage of a lately expanded flower, and are thus carried away....

"When the bee, thus provided, flies to another flower, or to the same flower a second time, and is pushed by its comrades into the bucket and then crawls out by the passage, the pollen-mass necessarily comes first into contact with the viscid stigma, and adheres to it, and the flower is fertilized. Now at last we see the full use of every part of the flower; of the water-secreting horns, of the bucket half full of water, which prevents the bees from flying away, and forces them to crawl out through the spout, and rub against the properly placed viscid pollen-masses and the viscid stigma."

Darwin said: "The Botanists praise my Orchid-book to the skies.... There is a superb, but, I fear, exaggerated, review in the 'London Review.' But I have not been a fool, as I thought I was, to publish; for Asa Gray, about the most competent judge in the world, thinks almost as highly of the book as does the 'London Review.'"

Darwin wrote several other books on plants. "The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants" was published in 1875; "Insectivorous Plants," in 1875; "Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilization," in 1876; "The different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species," in 1877; "The Power of Movement in Plants," in 1880.

When writing his "Different Forms of Flowers," he said, "I am all on fire at the work;" and of "Insectivorous Plants," "I have been working like a madman at Drosera. Here is a fact for you which is certain as you stand where you are, though you won't believe it, that a bit of hair, 1/78000 of one grain in weight, placed on gland, will cause _one_ of the gland-bearing hairs of Drosera to curve inwards, and will alter the condition of the content of every cell in the foot-stalk of the gland."

But he was growing tired with his constant and multifarious labors. He wrote to Hooker: "You ask about my book, and all that I can say is that I am ready to commit suicide; I thought it was decently written, but find so much wants rewriting that it will not be ready to go to printers for two months, and will then make a confoundedly big book. Murray will say that it is no use publishing in the middle of summer, so I do not know what will be the upshot; but I begin to think that every one who publishes a book is a fool."

In 1871 the "Descent of Man" was published. He worked on this book three years, and he wrote to his friend, Sir J. D. Hooker, that it has "half killed" him. For the first edition Darwin received over seven thousand dollars. It had an immense circulation in England and America, and created a furor in Germany.

Darwin believed "that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure had been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed among the quadrumana, as surely as would the common and still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys.

"The quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal, and this, through a long line of diversified forms, either from some reptile-like or some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fishlike animal. In the dim obscurity of the past, we can see that the early progenitor of all the vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, provided with branchiae, with the two sexes united in the same individual, and with the most important organs of the body (such as the brain and heart) imperfectly developed. This animal seems to have been more like the larvae of our existing marine Ascidians than any known form."

Most naturalists believe, with Darwin, that man has developed from some lower form, but many urge that at some stage of development he received the gift of speech, and mental and moral powers, from an omnipotent Creator.

Darwin received much abuse and much ridicule for his views. Mr. James D. Hague tells in "Harper's Magazine" of a visit paid to the great scientist, when a picture in the "Hornet" was shown; the body of a gorilla, with the head of Darwin. The latter laughed and said, "The head is cleverly done, but the gorilla is bad; too much chest; it couldn't be like that."

The "Descent of Man" shows the widest research, and is a storehouse of most interesting facts. "Sexual Selection" shows some of the most remarkable provisions of nature, and is as interesting as any novel. This book, like the "Origin," has been translated into various languages.

In 1872 "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" was published. Over five thousand copies were sold on the day of publication. It was begun at the birth of his first child, thirty-three years before. He says, "I at once commenced to make notes on the first dawn of the various expressions which he exhibited, for I felt convinced, even at this early period, that the most complex and fine shades of expression must all have had a gradual and natural origin." He wrote to a college friend regarding this baby: "He is so charming that I cannot pretend to any modesty. I defy anybody to flatter us on our baby, for I defy any one to say anything in its praise of which we are not fully conscious.... I had not the smallest conception there was so much in a five-mouth baby. You will perceive by this that I have a fine degree of paternal fervor."

In 1881, "The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits," was published. "Fragments of burnt marl, cinders, etc., which had been thickly strewed over the surface of several meadows were found, after a few years, lying at a depth of some inches beneath the turf, but still forming a layer." Ascertaining that this was the work of worms, Darwin made a study of their structure, habits, and work, in his garden, his fields, and in pots of earth kept in his study. The intelligence of worms, the construction of their burrows, and the amount of labor they can perform, are described in a most entertaining manner. Over fifty thousand worms are found in a single acre of land, or about three hundred and fifty-six pounds. "In many parts of England a weight of more than ten tons of dry earth annually passes through their bodies, and is brought to the surface, on each acre of land.... Worms prepare the ground in an excellent manner for the growth of fibrous-rooted plants and for seedlings of all kinds. They periodically expose the mould to the air, and sift it so that no stones larger than the particles which they can swallow are left in it. They mingle the whole intimately together, like a gardener who prepares fine soil for his choicest plants.... The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed, by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures."

In three years eighty-five hundred copies of the "Earthworms" were sold.

Mr. Darwin was now seventy-two years old. Already many honors had come to him, after the severe and bitter censure. In 1877, he received the degree of LL.D. from Cambridge University. In 1878, he was elected a corresponding member of the French Institute, and of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In 1879, he received the Baly Medal of the Royal College of Physicians. In 1879, from the Royal Academy of Turin, the _Bressa_ Prize of twelve thousand francs. He valued highly two photographic albums sent from Germany and Holland; one containing the pictures of one hundred and fifty-four noted scientific men; the other, of two hundred and seventeen lovers of natural science in the Netherlands. He wrote in thanks: "I am well aware that my books could never have been written, and would not have made any impression on the public mind, had not an immense amount of material been collected by a long series of admirable observers; and it is to them that honor is chiefly due. I suppose that every worker at science occasionally feels depressed, and doubts whether what he has published has been worth the labor which it has cost him, but for the few remaining years of my life, whenever I want cheering, I will look at the portraits of my distinguished co-workers in the field of science, and remember their generous sympathy."

He was made a member of more than seventy of the learned societies of the world; in America, Austria, India, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and elsewhere.

Darwin's work was now almost over. His dear friend Lyell had gone before him, of whom he said, "I never forget that almost everything which I have done in science I owe to the study of his great works." His brother Erasmus, to whom he was tenderly attached, died in 1881. In the spring of 1882 he was unable to work continuously as usual, and suffered from pain about the heart. On the night of April 18, he had a severe attack and fainted. When he was restored to consciousness, he said, "I am not the least afraid to die." He died the next day, April 19.

Darwin died as he had lived, with a heart overflowing with sympathy and tenderness. He said, "I feel no remorse from having committed any great sin, but have often and often regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow-creatures."

In his home life he was singularly blest. His son says, "No one except my mother knows the full amount of suffering he endured, or the full amount of his wonderful patience. For all the latter years of his life she never left him for a night; and her days were so planned that all his resting hours might be shared with her. She shielded him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted nothing that might save him trouble, or prevent him becoming overtired, or that might alleviate the many discomforts of his ill-health. I hesitate to speak thus freely of a thing so sacred as the life-long devotion which prompted all this constant and tender care. But it is ... a principal feature of his life that for nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of ordinary men, and that thus his life was one long struggle against the weariness and strain of sickness." And yet he accomplished all his wonderful work!

"In his relationship towards my mother, his tender and sympathetic nature was shown in its most beautiful aspect. In her presence he found his happiness, and through her his life--which might have been overshadowed by gloom--became one of content and quiet gladness."

He was the idol of his children, who used "to bribe him with sixpence to come and play in working hours." "We all knew the sacredness of working time," says Mr. Darwin's daughter, "but that any one should resist sixpence seemed an impossibility.... Another mark of his unbounded patience was the way in which we were suffered to make raids into the study when we had an absolute need of sticking-plaster, string, pins, scissors, stamps, foot-rule, or hammer. These and other such necessaries were always to be found in the study, and it was the only place where this was a certainty. We used to feel it wrong to go in during work-time; still, when the necessity was great we did so. I remember his patient look when he said once, 'Don't you think you could not come in again; I have been interrupted very often?'... He cared for all our pursuits and interests, and lived our lives with us in a way that very few fathers do."

His son says: "The way he brought us up is shown by a little story about my brother Leonard, which my father was fond of telling. He came into the drawing-room, and found Leonard dancing about on the sofa, which was forbidden, for the sake of the springs, and said, 'Oh, Lenny, Lenny, that's against all rules!' and received for answer, 'Then, I think you'd better go out of the room.' I do not believe he ever spoke an angry word to any of his children in his life; but I am certain that it never entered our heads to disobey him.... How often, when a man, I have wished, when my father was behind my chair, that he would pass his hand over my hair, as he used to do when I was a boy. He allowed his grown-up children to laugh with and at him, and was, generally speaking, on terms of perfect equality with us."

He was very fond of flowers, and also of dogs. When he had been absent from home, on his return his white fox-terrier, Polly, "would get wild with excitement, panting, squeaking, rushing round the room, and jumping on and off the chairs; and he used to stoop down, pressing her face to his, letting her lick him, and speaking to her with a peculiarly tender, caressing voice."

He was very tender-hearted. A friend who often visited at Down told me that Mrs. Darwin one day urged her husband to punish the little dog for some wrong-doing. He took the animal tenderly in his arms and carried her out-of-doors, patting her gently on the head. "Why, Charles," remonstrated the wife, "she did not feel it." He replied, "I could do no more."

"The remembrance of screams or other sounds heard in Brazil," says Francis Darwin, "when he was powerless to interfere with what he believed to be the torture of a slave, haunted him for years, especially at night. In smaller matters, when he could interfere, he did so vigorously. He returned one day from his walk pale and faint from having seen a horse ill-used, and from the agitation of violently remonstrating with the man. On another occasion he saw a horse-breaker teaching his son to ride. The little boy was frightened, and the man was rough. My father stopped, and, jumping out of the carriage, reproved the man in no measured terms....

"A visitor, driving from Orpington to Down, told the man to go faster. 'Why,' said the driver, 'if I had whipped the horse _this_ much driving Mr. Darwin, he would have got out of the carriage and abused me well.'"

His manner was bright and animated, and his face glowed in conversation. He enjoyed fun, had a merry, ringing laugh, and a happy way of turning things. He said once, "Gray (Asa Gray of Harvard College) often takes me to task for making hasty generalizations; but the last time he was here talking that way, I said to him, 'Now, Gray, I have one more generalization to make, which is not hasty; and that is, the Americans are the most delightful people I know.'"

"He was particularly charming when 'chaffing' any one," says his son, "and in high spirits over it. His manner at such times was light-hearted and boyish, and his refinement of nature came out most strongly. So, when he was talking to a lady who pleased and amused him, the combination of raillery and deference in his manner was delightful to see. When my father had several guests, he managed them well, getting a talk with each, or bringing two or three together round his chair....

"My father much enjoyed wandering slowly in the garden with my mother or some of his children, or making one of a party sitting out on a bench on the lawn; he generally sat, however, on the grass, and I remember him often lying under one of the big lime-trees, with his head on the green mound at its foot."

He had great perseverance in his work, and used often to say, "It's dogged as does it;" and "Saving the minutes is the way to get work done." It was his habit to rise early in the morning, and after breakfast work from eight to half-past nine, and then read his letters. At ten or half-past, he went back to his work till twelve. After exercise in the "Sandwalk," a narrow strip of land, one and a half acres in extent, with a gravel walk round it, planted with a variety of trees, in which he watched the birds and squirrels, he lunched and read his newspaper. After this he wrote letters, and about three o'clock rested for a time on the sofa, some of his family reading to him, often a novel,--the work of Walter Scott, George Eliot, Miss Austen, or others. At four he walked again, worked from half-past four till half-past five, dined, and usually spent his evenings, after a game of backgammon with his wife, or hearing her play on the piano, in reading scientific books. Conversation in the evening usually spoiled his rest for the night, but he could do a great amount of work if he kept to his regular routine. In each book, as he read it, he marked passages bearing on his work. In reading a book or pamphlet, he made pencil lines at the side of the page, often adding short remarks, and at the end made a list of the pages marked.

Darwin said of himself: "At no time am I a quick thinker or writer; whatever I have done in science has solely been by long pondering, patience, and industry.... I think that I am superior to the common run of men in noticing things which easily escape attention, and in observing them carefully. My industry has been nearly as great as it could have been in the observation and collection of facts. What is far more important, my love of natural science has been steady and ardent.

"This pure love has, however, been much aided by the ambition to be esteemed by my fellow-naturalists. From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed; that is, to group all facts under some general laws.... My habits are methodical, and this has been of not a little use for my particular line of work. Lastly, I have had ample leisure from not having to earn my own bread. Even ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society and amusement."

Mr. Darwin was never egotistical, or elated by his great success. He always felt and spoke modestly of his work. In the village people of Down he took a cordial interest, helping to found a Friendly Club, which he served as treasurer for thirty years. He also acted for some years as a county magistrate. The Vicar of Down, Rev. J. Brodie Innes, and Mr. Darwin were firm friends for thirty years, yet, says Darwin, "we never thoroughly agreed on any subject but once, and then we stared hard at each other, and thought one of us must be very ill."

In the hall of the great Natural History Museum in London, a statue of Darwin was placed June 9, 1885, with appropriate addresses.

Darwin's life is a most interesting study. That a boy who seemed in youth to have no special fondness for books, but an especial delight in collecting beetles; who appeared unfitted either for medicine or the church, should come to such a renowned manhood, is remarkable. His perseverance, his industry, his thought, his gentleness, his sunny nature in the midst of suffering, are delightful to contemplate. His books will be an enduring monument. He combined a great intellect and a great heart, which makes the most attractive nature, in either man or woman.

FRANCIS TREVELYAN BUCKLAND.

Most of those whose lives are sketched in this volume lived to be old men; but Frank Buckland, the pet and pride of thousands in England, died in his prime, almost at the beginning of his fame; a man of whose life our "Popular Science Monthly" says, "None more active, varied, and useful is recorded in scientific biography."

He was the oldest son of the Dean of Westminster, Dr. William Buckland, and was born December 17, 1826, at Christ Church, Oxford, of which cathedral his father was canon at that time.

"I was told," says Frank, in later years, "that, soon after my birth, my father and my godfather, the late Sir Francis Chantry, weighed me in the kitchen scales against a leg of mutton, and that I was heavier than the joint provided for the family dinner that day. In honor of my arrival, my father and Sir Francis went into the garden and planted a birch tree. I know the taste of the twigs of that birch tree well. Sir Francis Chantry offered to give me a library. 'What is the use of a library to a child an hour old?' said my father. 'He will live to be sorry for that answer,' said Sir Francis. I never got the library.

"One of my earliest offences in life was eating the end of a carriage candle. For this, the birch rod not being handy, my father put me into a furze bush, and therein I did penance for ten minutes. A furze bush does not make a pleasant lounge when only very thin summer garments are worn."

The father, Dean Buckland, was distinguished as a man of letters, and for his geological research. The mother, as is often the case with sons of genius, was a remarkable woman, who idolized her boy, and who received in return an affection unusual in its intimacy and confidence.

She began to write about him early, in her journal. "At two and a half years of age," she says, "he never forgets either pictures or people he has seen. Four months ago, as well as now, he would have gone through all the natural history books in the Radcliffe Library, without making one error in miscalling a parrot, a duck, a kingfisher, an owl, or a vulture."

On taking him to see the camelopard and kangaroos in Windsor Park, she says, "He ran about with the latter and the other live animals without the least fear, though he got thrown down by them. He is a robust, sturdy child, sharp as a needle, but so volatile that I foresee some trouble in making him fix his attention."

When three and a half, she says, "he certainly is not at all premature; his great excellence is in his disposition, and apparently very strong reasoning powers, and a most tenacious memory as to facts. He is always asking questions, and never forgets the answers he receives, if they are such as he can comprehend. If there is anything he cannot understand, or any word, he won't go on till it has been explained to him. He is always wanting to see everything made, or to know how it is done; there is no end to his questions, and he is never happy unless he sees the relations between cause and effect."

At four he began collecting specimens of natural history. At this time a clergyman brought some fossils to Dr. Buckland. Calling his son, who was playing in the room, the Dean said, "Frankie, what are these?"

"They are the vertebrae of an ichthyosaurus," lisped the child, unable to speak plainly.

Mrs. Buckland gave her boy a small cabinet, which now bears this inscription: "This is the first cabinet I ever had; my mother gave it to me when about four years old, December, 1830. It is the nucleus of all my natural-history work. Please take care of the poor old thing."

"In his early home at Christ Church," says Frank Buckland's brother-in-law, George C. Bompas, in his interesting life of the naturalist, "besides the stuffed creatures, which shared the hall with the rocking-horse, there were cages full of snakes, and of green frogs, in the dining-room, where the sideboard groaned under successive layers of fossils, and the candles stood on ichthyosauri's vertebrae. Guinea-pigs were often running over the table, and, occasionally, the pony, having trotted down the steps from the garden, would push open the dining-room door, and career round the table, with three laughing children on his back; and then, marching through the front door, and down the steps, would continue his course round Tom Quad.

"In the stable yard and large wood-house were the fox, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and ferrets, hawks and owls, the magpie and jackdaw, besides dogs, cats, and poultry, and in the garden was the tortoise (on whose back the children would stand to try its strength), and toads immured in various pots, to test the truth of their supposed life in rock cells."

The boy Frank naturally developed a taste for natural history in the midst of such surroundings. At nine years of age, he was sent to school at Cotterstock, in Northamptonshire, and at twelve was elected scholar of Winchester College.

He tells an interesting experience on his entrance. "Immediately after chapel, the old stager boys all came round the new arrivals, to examine and criticise them. I perfectly recollect one boy, H., to whose special care my poor confiding mother had entrusted her innocent, unsuspecting cub, coming up to me with a most solemn face, and asking me if I had brought with me a copy of the school-book, 'Pempe moron proteron.' I said I had not. 'Then,' said he, 'you must borrow one at once, or the doctor,' i. e. Dr. Moberly, the head master, 'will be sure to flog you to-morrow morning, and your college tutor, one of the praefects, will also lick you.'

"So he sent me to another boy, who said he had _lent_ his 'Pempe moron proteron,' but he passed me on to a third, he on to a fourth; so I was running about all over the college till quite late, in a most terrible panic of mind, till at last a good-natured praefect said, 'Construe it, you little fool.' I had never thought of this before. I saw it directly: _Pempe_ (send) _moron_ (a fool) _proteron_ (further). So the title of this wonderful book, after all, was, 'Send a fool further.' I then went to complain to H.; he only laughed, and shied a Donnegan's Lexicon at my head."

"A few nights afterwards," says Frank, "I dreamt I was wandering on the seashore, and that a crab was pinching my foot. Instantly awakening, I experienced a most frightful pain in my great toe. I bore it for a while, until at last it became so intense that I had to jump up with a howl of agony; all was quiet, but the pull continued, and I had to follow my toe and outstretched leg out of bed. I then found a bit of netted whipcord tight round it; but the whipcord was so ingeniously twisted among the beds, that it was impossible to find out _who had_ pulled it. I returned to bed as savage as a wounded animal. The moment I was settled, the boys all burst into a shout: 'Toe fit tied! By Jove, what a lark!' This barbarous process is called 'toe fit tie' because there is a line in Prosody which begins, 'To fit ti, ut verto verti.' Hence the origin of this Winchester custom."

A school friend says of Frank at this time: "Imagine a short, quick-eyed little boy, with a shock head of reddish brown hair (not much amenable to a hair-brush), a white neck-cloth tied like a piece of rope with no particular bow, and his bands sticking out under either ear as fancy pleased him,--in fact, a boy utterly indifferent to personal appearance, but good-tempered and eccentric, with a small museum in his sleeve or cupboard, sometimes a snake, or a pet mouse, or a guinea-pig, or even a hedge-hog. In the summer he would be always in the hedgerows, after birds, weasels, or mice, or in the water-meadows, after crayfish, tomculls, and other fish which hide under stones.... In fact, he was a born naturalist."

Another says: "Frank set up a sort of amateur dispensary or hospital. He had a patient or two. One man I remember, with a bad hand, who used to come down to College Gate at twelve o'clock to consult him and be experimented upon. In his toys (cupboard) he had various bottles and specimens, one very highly treasured possession being a three-legged chicken.

"His own natural disposition was of the sweetest and gentlest. I never saw him in a passion, though he used to get a good deal teased at one time for his untidiness. But he always had a bright smile amidst it all, and was ready to do anything for anybody immediately after. One thing used to strike me very much about him, and that was his exceeding love for his mother. Boys are generally reticent upon this point, but Frank seemed never tired of telling me about his, and how much he owed her....