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 evolution 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 more fortunate, than Charles Darwin. He found a great truth trodden underfoot, reviled by bigots, and ridiculed by all the world; he lived long enough to see it, chiefly by his own efforts, irrefragably established in science, inseparably incorporated with the common thoughts of men, and only hated and feared by those who would revile, but dare not. What shall a man desire more than this[145]?' More than a quarter of a century has passed since these words were written. How during that period the influence of Darwin's writings on human thought has grown, in an accelerated ratio, will be seen by anyone who will turn the pages of the memorial volume--_Darwin and Modern Science_--published fifty years after the _Origin of Species_. Therein, not only zoologists, botanists and geologists, but physicists, chemists, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, philologists, historians--and even politicians and theologians--are found testifying to the important part which Darwin's great work has played, in revolutionising ideas and moulding thought in connexion with all branches of knowledge and speculation. CHAPTER XII THE PLACE OF LYELL AND DARWIN IN HISTORY From the account given in the foregoing pages, it will be seen that--without detracting from the merits of their predecessors or the value of the labours of their contemporaries--we must ascribe the work of establishing on a firm foundation of observation and reasoning the doctrine of evolution--both in the inorganic and the organic world--to the investigations and writings of Lyell and Darwin. Lyell had to oppose the geologists of his day, who led by Buckland in this country and by Cuvier on the continent, were almost, without exception, hopelessly wedded to the doctrines of 'Catastrophism,' and bitterly antagonistic to all ideas savouring of continuity or evolution. And, in the same way, Darwin, at the outset, found himself face to face with a similarly hostile attitude, on the part of biologists, with respect to the mode of appearance of new species of plants and animals.