CHARLES DARWIN. 435 
saw its strong points, but he foresaw its limitations, indicated 
most of the objections in advance of his opponents, weighed 
them with judicial mind, and where he could not obviate 
them, seemed never disposed to underrate their force. AI- 
though naturally disposed to make the most of his theory, he 
distinguished between what he could refer to known causes 
and what thus far is not referable to them. Consequently, 
he kept clear of that common confusion of thought which 
supposes that natural selection originates the variations which 
it selects. He believed, and he has shown it to be probable, 
that external conditions induce the actions and changes in the 
living plant or animal which may lead on to the difference 
between one species and another; but he did not maintain 
that they produced the changes, or were sufficient scientifically 
to explain them. Unlike most of his contemporaries in this 
respect, he appears to have been thoroughly penetrated by the 
idea that the whole physiological action of the plant or animal 
is a response of the living organism to the action of the sur- 
roundings. 
The judicial fairness and openness of Darwin’s mind, his 
penetration and sagacity, his wonderful power of eliciting the 
meaning of things which had escaped questioning by their 
very commonness, and of discerning the great significance of 
causes and interactions which had been disregarded on ac- 
count of their supposed insignificance, his method of reason- 
ing close to the facts and in contact with the solid ground of 
nature, his aptness in devising fruitful and conclusive exper- 
iments, and in prosecuting nice researches with simple but 
effectual appliances, and the whole rare combination of quali- 
ties which made him facile princeps in biological investiga- 
tion, — all these gifts are so conspicuously manifest in his 
published writings, and are so fully appreciated, that there is 
no need to celebrate them in an obituary memorial. The 
writings also display in no small degree the spirit of the man, 
and to this not a little of their persuasiveness is due. His 
desire to ascertain the truth, and to present it purely to his 
readers, is everywhere apparent. Conspicuous, also, is the 
absence of all trace of controversy and of everything like 
