THE HALO OF A HUNDRED YEARS 387 



marble, were born in 1809, like the philosophers Vacherot and Franck, 

 in France ; Tari, in Italy ; Nielsen, in Denmark ; and Bledsoe, in this 

 country. In the arts of war it bore at least four leaders of distinction — 

 Canrobert, marshal of France ; Manteuffel, first governor of the ReicJis- 

 land after the fall of Napoleon III. ; Dahlgren, the American admiral, 

 an authority on ordnance; and Menabrea, the Italian engineer, an 

 eminent name in the science of fortification. Its most noted diplo- 

 matist was Eutherford Alcock, who saw some of the stress that accom- 

 panied the introduction of occidental civilization into Japan, and whose 

 bread, cast upon the waters long ago, has returned to such consequence 

 after many days. Finally, as if to round out the universe of human 

 activity, 1809 brought to birth two immortal statesmen — ^Lincoln, who 

 was born on the same day as Darwin, and Gladstone. 



Now notwithstanding the multifarious activities, incalculable influ- 

 ence, and momentous events, connected with these fifty-four names — an 

 extraordinary galaxy — there can be little doubt that, setting aside place 

 and, in particular, nationality, Darwin has laid profoundest hold upon 

 the universal imagination of mankind. And the obvious question 

 arises, why? Let us look at this for a little; it is much easier to ask 

 than to answer. 



In this presence, it would be an impertinence on my part were I to 

 wander into the problem of evolution as understood by students of 

 natural science. But, possibly, I may be able to contribute my tiny 

 mite from another standpoint. 



We may take it as axiomatic that genius achieves supremacy very 

 rarely against, or without, the cooperant " social mind," and that it pays 

 the price for lone attainment by missing' highest rank. To adopt Mat- 

 thew Arnold's phrase, the man and the moment must agree ; or, as Goe- 

 the said, only he who unites with the many at the right moment ever 

 becomes great. If I be not far wide of the mark, Darwin enjoyed 

 peculiar fortune in this respect and, thanks to his extraordinary patience, 

 backed by unusual perseverance and devotion, came to enthrone him- 

 self amid the master intellects typical of the nineteenth century. 



To begin with, then, we must bear in mind that centuries are arbi- 

 trary divisions, that no break assails the onward movement of thought, 

 and that every age serves itself upon its successor. The immense dis- 

 placements, due to the Eenascence in the fifteenth century, and to the 

 Reformation in the sixteenth, carried over into the seventeenth; while 

 the seventeenth lived on in the eighteenth, just as the eighteenth, thanks 

 probably to political and social conditions, continued to rule the nine- 

 teenth to 1873 (death of John Stuart Mill), say, especially in the Eng- 

 lish-speaking countries. Indeed, much of the opposition encountered 

 by evolution from the man in the street, and from pseudo-thinkers, 

 may be traced to this simple fact. Nay, we can trace its potent influ- 



