134 THE COMING [CH. 



time, by the deepest thinkers of the age with 

 conviction. 



It is scarcely possible to refer to the literary style 

 of Darwin's work without a reference to a misconcep- 

 tion arising from that very candid analysis of his 

 characteristics which he wrote for the satisfaction of 

 his family, but which has happily been given to the 

 world by his son. In his early life Darwin was 

 exceedingly fond of music, and took such delight in 

 good literature, especially poetry, that when on his 

 journeys in South America he found himself able to 

 carry only one book with him, the work chosen was 

 the poems of Milton the former student of his own 

 Christ's College, Cambridge. But towards the end 

 of his life, Darwin had sadly to confess that he found 

 that he had quite lost the capacity of enjoying either 

 music or the noblest works of literature. 



Some have argued that Darwin's scientific labours 

 must have actually proved destructive to his artistic 

 and literary tastes, and have even gone so far as to 

 assert in spite of numerous examples to the con- 

 trary that there is a natural antithesis between the 

 mental conditions that respectively favour scientific 

 and artistic excellence. 



But I think there is a very simple explanation of 

 the loss by Darwin of his powers of enjoyment of 

 music and poetry, a loss which he evidently greatly 

 deplored His scientific undertaking was so gigantic, 



