ll, the "origin of species," was believed to be an insoluble
problem. But now this is all changed. The whole scientific and literary
world, even the whole educated public, accepts, as a matter of common
knowledge, the origin of species from other allied species by the
ordinary process of natural birth. The idea of special creation or any
altogether exceptional mode of production is absolutely extinct! Yet
more: this is held also to apply to many higher groups as well as to the
species of a genus, and not even Mr. Darwin's severest critics venture
to suggest that the primeval bird, reptile, or fish must have been
"specially created." And this vast, this totally unprecedented change in
public opinion has been the result of the work of one man, and was
brought about in the short space of twenty years! This is the answer to
those who continue to maintain that the "origin of species" is not yet
discovered; that there are still doubts and difficulties; that there are
divergencies of structure so great that we cannot understand how they
had their beginning. We may admit all this, just as we may admit that
there are enormous difficulties in the way of a complete comprehension
of the origin and nature of all the parts of the solar system and of the
stellar universe. But we claim for Darwin that he is the Newton of
natural history, and that, just so surely as that the discovery and
demonstration by Newton of the law of gravitation established order in
place of chaos and laid a sure foundation for all future study of the
starry heavens, so surely has Darwin, by his discovery of the law of
natural selection and his demonstration of the great principle of the
preservation of useful variations in the struggle for life, not only
thrown a flood of light on the process of development of the whole
organic world, but also established a firm foundation for all future
study of nature.

In order to show the view Darwin took of his own work, and what it was
that he alone claimed to have done, the concluding passage of the
introduction to the _Origin of_ _Species_ should be carefully
considered. It is as follows: "Although much remains obscure, and will
long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate
and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which
most naturalists until recently entertained and which I formerly
entertained--namely, that each species has been independently
created--is erroneous. I