i6 NATURAL SCIENCE. july, 1894. 



by the exercise of steady overcoming of difficulty, and it marked a 

 gradual step towards higher perfection ; and so every work of art — 

 and in this class they might include mechanical contrivance — declared 

 as traceably the patient control of the Maker's energies. . . . The 

 exquisite work of all ages, which all might see in Museums, was the 

 surest spur to ambition, and this in its full force made all pains and 

 patience well spent in the accomplishment of good work, and made 

 the artist of every kind turn with disdain from encouragements to 

 mediocrity, which were certainly among the dangers of our day." 



Darwin and the Y.M.C.A. 

 During the recent assembly of Christian young men in London, 

 the Rev. James Hastings, M.A., of Kineff, N.B., was reported by the 

 Daily Chronicle to have made the following remarks : — 



" This is the age of specialists and dwarfs. Darwin is the best 

 example, and I refer to him just because his case is so well and widely 

 known. You remember his confession : that he had spent himself so 

 long and so exclusively upon insects, that the avenues of the soul into 

 which God and music were wont to enter had become closed for ever. 

 This seems to be Darwin's contribution to the knowledge of the world, 

 that responsible men may lose their organs if they refuse to use 

 them." 



We do not think of accusing the Rev. James Hastings, M.x\., of 

 Kineff, N.B., of bearing false witness, for it is plain that that good 

 man has never troubled to look into Darwin's writings for himself ; 

 but it is interesting to notice the evolution of this myth, now " so well 

 and widely known." It was founded upon a few lines in the auto- 

 biographical part of Darwin's " Life and Letters." The complete 

 passage is too long to quote ; anyone may find it in the first volume 

 of the "Life and Letters," pp. 100-102. Darwin says that he lost 

 the taste for music and poetry and pictures which he had up to about 

 the age of thirty, but that novels remained a wonderful relief and 

 pleasure to him, especially if they had a happy ending. He suggests 

 that his mind had become a " machine for grinding general laws out 

 of a large collection of facts," and that this may have caused an 

 atrophy of that part of the brain alone upon which the higher tastes 

 depend. Of course, there was no word about the soul or God, and as 

 for music, one may read a few pages further on that he never had any 

 ear for music, and that although, like many other people with a 

 similarly defective ear, he enjoyed hearing many tunes, he was never 

 able to recognise an old favourite. 



It was that astute ecclesiastic, the lats Canon Aubrey Moore, 

 who first laid hold of this passage for controversial purposes. He 

 himself knew well, and did much to combat the view, that Darwinism 

 and infidelity were interchangeable terms, but apparently he could not 

 resist the temptation of suggesting that poor Darwin was devoid of a 

 faculty that the Canon and other ecclesiastics possessed. It was left 

 for later and narrower-minded persons to work up the idea into its- 

 present form. 



