When he was sixteen years old, Darwin went to Edinburgh to study medicine. But he was already a rebel against dryness and dead academic thought, and wrote home that the lectures in anatomy were quite as dry as was the lecturer himself. After two years of medicine he gave up his work at Edinburgh, and went to Cambridge to become a preacher. But while studying for the ministry the young Darwin spent a great deal of his time with nature, and acquired something of a reputation as a naturalist. When, in 1831, he was offered the chance to make a five years’ trip around the world as naturalist on the exploring ship “Beagle” he did not delay long in accepting. The things seen, and the facts learned on that long voyage probably had more to do with making Darwin a great naturalist than any other single phase of his life. On his return to England the young man set about writing up the results of his studies while on his trip, and put into this book most of the arguments which he had to give in favor of evolution. In 1856 he sent this report to Sir Joseph Hooker, then the leading authority on plants in England, and finally in 1859 published his great book, “The Origin of Species.” This was the first concise statement of a theory of evolution, backed up by actual evidence, and it created a furore both in Europe and America. Some scientists eagerly took up with Darwin’s ideas, seeing in them the explanation of facts that they had long been unable to understand. Others, lacking in breadth of knowledge, or unwilling to give up old beliefs, fought bitterly against evolution. The controversy involved not only scientists, but the churchmen, and was a leading feature in newspapers, magazines, and books. “The Origin of Species” ran into many editions, and was translated into several languages. Darwin found himself a center of interest for the world, and his theory a cause of heated argument for all who cared to talk or write about it. How revolutionary Darwin’s work was, and how unwillingly he himself came to the conclusion that organic evolution was an undeniable truth, it is hard for us to understand. For most of us, some at least, of the essential facts of evolution are every-day knowledge; we look upon the anti-evolutionist as a strange anachronism--a hang-over from a past age. But in Darwin’s day conditions were very different. Thus we find him, in a letter written in 1844 to the great botanist Hooker, saying: