i OUTLOOK AND ENDEAVOUR 19 



Darwin, with whom Wallace shared the honour of 

 building up the great principle of natural selection as 

 the prime cause of organic evolution, found equal 

 pleasure in Nature to the end of his life ; and his chief 

 regret was that he had not been able to contribute 

 more to natural knowledge and human happiness. 

 " As for myself," he said, " I believe that I have 

 acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my 

 life to science. I feel no remorse from having com- 

 mitted any great sin, but have often and often regretted 

 that I have not done more direct good to my fellow 

 creatures." 



So little done, so much to do, is the first and last 

 thought of the man of science. A short time before his 

 death, Sir Isaac Newton expressed the memorable 

 sentiment : " I do not know what I may appear to the 

 world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy 

 playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now 

 and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell 

 than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all 

 undiscovered before me." 



This was Newton's estimate of his work, yet it is 

 related that when the Queen of Prussia asked Leibnitz 

 his opinion of Newton, Leibnitz said that taking mathe- 

 maticians from the beginning of the world to the time 

 when Newton lived, what he had done was much the 

 better half. 



After Sir William Herschel had discovered the planet 

 Uranus he was commanded by King George III. to 

 attend the court with his telescope. Writing to his 

 sister Caroline he said : " Nothing now is talked of bub 

 what they call my great discoveries. Alas ! this shows 

 how far they are behind when such trifles as I have done 

 are called great. Let me but get at it again ; I will 



