14 DISCOVERY 



are, in the great majority of cases, unaware of the most 

 obvious facts and phenomena of Nature, and have no 

 acquaintance with the most elementary vocabulary of 

 science. In everything that relates to the material 

 universe around them, they are blind leaders of the 

 blind ; and they call their darkness light. They arc 

 indifferent to the wonderful growth and extent of scien- 

 tific knowledge, and live in a paradise in which rounded 

 phrases and curious fancies are of more importance than 

 actual facts. In such a world a one-eyed man can be 

 king. A more enlightened view will only be obtained 

 when it is realised that an educated man must know 

 something of science as well as of literature. 



The supercilious manner in which science is often 

 treated by men nourished in a purely literary atmo- 

 sphere is illustrated by an incident related in Lord 

 Morley's Life of Gladstone. In 1877 Lord Morley, with 

 Mr. Gladstone, Huxley and Lord Play fair, were staying 

 with Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock), at High Elms, 

 in Kent, and on the Sunday afternoon the party went 

 up to the neighbouring village of Downe to visit Darwin. 



The illustrious pair, born in the same year, had never met 

 before. Mr. Gladstone as soon as seated took Darwin's interest 

 in lessons of massacre for granted, and launched forth his thunder- 

 bolts [against Turkish atrocities] with unexhausted zest. His 

 great, wise, simple, and truth-loving listener, then, I think, busy 

 on digestive powers of the Drosera in his green-house, was 

 intensely delighted. When we broke up, watching Mr. Glad- 

 stone's erect figure as he walked away, Darwin, shading his eyes 

 with his hand against the evening rays, said to me in unaffected 

 satisfaction, " What an honour that such a great man should 

 come to visit me ! " Too absorbed in his own overwhelming 

 conflict with the powers of evil, Mr. Gladstone makes no mention 

 of his afternoon call, and only says of the two days that "he found 

 a notable party, and much interesting conversation," and that 

 he " could not help liking " one of the company, then a stranger 

 to him. Lord Horley. 



