WHAT WE OWE TO DARWIN 33 



and reality is part of the unending business of 

 science. Faraday said that the scientific investi- 

 gator should be "not a respecter of persons, but 

 of things." It was Huxley who spoke of "that 

 enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, 

 which is a greater possession than much learning ; 

 a nobler gift than the power of increasing know- 

 ledge." Darwin was a fine illustration of this 

 passion for facts ; there have been few naturalists 

 more careful as to data. He began collecting facts 

 in regard to the work of earthworms when a 

 young student in Edinburgh, and he published 

 his fascinating book the year in which he died. 

 His gardener said : " He moons about in the 

 garden, and I have seen him stand doing nothing 

 before a flower ten minutes at a time." 



SCIENTIFIC CAUTION. Following from the pas- 

 sion of facts is a second characteristic of the 

 scientific mood, namely, cautiousness, or distrust 

 of finality and dogmatism of statement. Prof. 

 W. K. Brooks says, in his " Foundations of 

 Zoology " : " The hardest of intellectual virtues 

 is philosophic doubt, and the mental vice to 

 which we are most prone is our tendency to believe 

 that lack of evidence for an opinion is a reason 

 for believing something else. . . . Suspended judg- 

 ment is the greatest triumph of intellectual dis- 

 cipline." As Huxley said : " The assertion that 

 outstrips the evidence is not only a blunder but 

 a crime." As Karl Pearson says : " The scientific 

 man has, above all things, to strive at self-elimina- 

 tion in his judgments, to provide an argument which 

 is as true for each individual mind as for his 

 own." What a fine temper there is in Darwin's 

 statement " I have steadily endeavoured to 



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