]26 DARWINIANISM. 



this habit of making indices, he was enabled to give the astonishing 

 number of references on all sorts of subjects which may be found in 

 his Htttory of Civilisation. This book I thought most interesting, 

 and read it twice, but I doubt whether his generalisations are worth 

 anything. Buckle was a great talker, and I listened to him, saying 

 hardly a word ; nor indeed could I have done so, for he left no gaps. 

 Afterl had moved away, he turned round to a friend and said, ' Well, 

 Mr. Darwin's books are much better than his conversation.'" 



It is a somewhat cheap admiration, that of Mr. 

 Darwin's in regard to Buckle's " astonishing references ; " 

 for the admiration of an expert would rather have 

 reflected on the amount of commonplace before it the 

 amount of commonplace implied in that vainglorious 

 catalogue of mostly ordinary volumes that are " only 

 duodecimo and under " (or " octavo " is it ?) when the 

 size is not specially mentioned ! Think of the sandy 

 foundation of that wonderful list of writers with corre- 

 spondent footnotes, CL propos of the French Kevolution ! 

 Are not the tallies wonderful the keys with the locks 

 to them the numbers up, and the numbers down ! 



But, of course, it was natural that Mr. Darwin, think- 

 ing of his own indexes, should be interested in those of 

 Mr. Buckle. To ask Buckle, however, how he knew 

 beforehand what would prove serviceable to him was, on 

 the part of Mr. Darwin, simply irony, barefaced, arrant 

 irony ; for, as it was only one idea (the bee) guided him- 

 self, so it was only the commonest, vulgarest, shallowest 

 freethinking-ism (Aufklarung) guided Mr. Buckle. There 

 could be no difficulty in either Mr. Buckle or Mr. Darwin 

 finding his way through ten thousand volumes, inasmuch 

 as both the one and the other had but a single thing to 

 see. Neither need Mr. Buckle have called his eye for 

 this " enlightenment " an " instinct ! " 



Earlier, Mr. Darwin wrote to his friend Hooker : " I 

 was not much struck with the great Buckle, and I 

 admired the way you stuck up about deduction and 



