i] OF EVOLUTION 3 



of their personal claims than of the purity of their 

 own motives they have sometimes, it must be sadly 

 admitted, allowed self-interest to obscure the interests 

 of science. But in the story we have to relate there 

 are no ' regrettable incidents ' to be deplored ; never 

 has there occurred any event that marred the harmony 

 in this band of fellow- workers, striving towards a 

 great ideal. So noble, indeed, was the great central 

 figure Charles Darwin that his senior Lyell and 

 all his juniors were bound to him by the strongest 

 ties of admiration, respect and affection ; while he, 

 in his graceful modesty, thought more of them than 

 of himself, of the results of their labours rather than 

 of his own great achievement. 



It is not, as sometimes suggested, the striking out 

 of new ideas which is of the greatest importance in 

 the history of science, but rather the accumulation 

 of observations and experiments, the reasonings 

 based upon these, and the writings in which facts 

 and reasonings are presented to the world by which 

 a merely suggestive hypothesis becomes a vivifying 

 theory that really count in making history. 



Talking with Matthew Arnold in 1871, he laugh- 

 ingly remarked to me * I cannot understand why you 

 scientific people make such a fuss about Darwin. 

 Why it's all in Lucretius ! ' On my replying, ' Yes ! 

 Lucretius guessed what Darwin proved/ he mischiev- 

 ously rejoined 'Ah! that only shows how much 



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