454 CHARLES DARWIN. 



his energy antl for his devotion to knowledge for its own sake. In- 

 deed, having directed the flow of scientific thought into the new 

 channel he had opened, along which the current set quicker and 

 stronger than he could have expected, he seems to have taken up with 

 fresh delight studies which he had marked out in early years, or topics 

 which from time to time had struck his acute attention. To tliese 

 he gave himself, quite to the last, with all the spirit and curiosity of 

 youth. Evidently all this amount of work was done for the pure love 

 of it ; it was all done methodically, with clear and definite aim, without 

 haste, but without intermission. 



It would confidently be supposed that in this case genius and 

 industry were seconded by leisure and bodily vigor. Fortunately 

 Darwin's means enabled him to control the disposition of his time. 

 But the voyage of the Beagle, which was so advantageous to science, 

 ruined his health. A sort of chronic sea-sickness, under which all 

 his work abroad was performed, harassed him ever afterwards. The 

 days in which he could give two hours to investigation or writing were 

 counted as good ones, and for much of his life they were largely out- 

 numbered by those in which nothing could be attempted. Only by 

 great care and the simplest habits was he able to secure even a mod- 

 erate amount of comfortable existence. But in this respect his later 

 years were the best ones, and therefore the busiest. In them also he 

 had most valuable filial aid. There was nothing to cause much anxiety 

 until his seventy-third birthday had passed, or to excite alarm until the 

 week before his death. 



It may without exageration be said that no scientific man, certainly 

 no naturalist, ever made an impression at once so deep, so wide, and 

 so immediate. The name of Linnasus might suggest comparison ; but 

 readers and pupils of Linnaeus over a century ago were to those of 

 Darwin as tens are to thousands, and the scientific as well as the pop- 

 ular interest of the subjects considered were somewhat in the same 

 ratio. Humboldt, who, like Darwin, began with research in travel, and 

 to whom the longest of lives, vigorous health, and the best oppor- 

 tunities were allotted, essayed similar themes in a more ambitious 

 spirit, enjoyed equal or greater renown, but made no deep impression 

 upon the thought of his own day or of ours. As one criterion of 

 celebrity, it may be noted that no other author we know of ever gave 

 rise in his own active lifetime to a special department of bibliography. 

 Dante-literature and Shakespeare-literature are the growth of cen- 

 turies ; but Darwlnismus had filled shelves and alcoves and teeming 

 catalogues while the unremitting author was still supplying new and 



