The coming of evolution : the story of a great revolution in science / by John W. Judd.

  • Judd, John W. (John Wesley), 1840-1916.
Date:
1910
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The coming of evolution : the story of a great revolution in science / by John W. Judd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    discoveries in palaeontology, that I often recall our conversations in these later days, when so many in- teresting forms of extinct animal and vegetable life— veritable ‘ missing links ’—are being discovered in all parts of the globe, and wish that he could have known of them. They are indeed ‘ Facts for Darwin.’ Very happy indeed was Charles Darwin in the last years of his useful life, in returning to his oldest ‘love’ —geology. In studying the action of earthworms he found a geological study in which his rare powers of ingenious experimentation could be employed with profit. His earliest published memoir had dealt with the question, and for more than forty years with dogged perseverance, he had laboured at it from time to time. It was delightful to watch his pleasure as he examined what was going on in the flower-pots full of mould in his study, and when his book was published and favourably received, he rejoiced in it as ‘the child of his old age144.’ Charles Darwin’s death took place rather more than twenty-two years after the publication of the Origin of Species. Before he passed away, he had the satisfaction of knowing that the doctrine of evolu- tion had come to be—mainly through his own great efforts—the accepted creed of all naturalists and that even for the world at large it had lost its imaginary terrors. As Huxley wrote a few days after our sad loss, ‘None have fought better, and none have been 10—2