34 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, 

 however much beloved and I cannot resist 

 forming one on every subject as soon as facts are 

 shown to be opposed to it." " I had/' he says, 

 " during many years followed a golden rule, namely, 

 that whenever a published fact, a new observation 

 or thought came across me, which was opposed 

 to my general results, to make a memorandum 

 of it without fail, and at once ; for I had found, 

 by experience, that such facts and thoughts were far 

 more apt to escape from the memory than favourable 

 ones/' Let us remember how Darwin opened his first 

 note-book in 1837, conceived the idea of natural 

 selection in 1838, sent a sketch of the theory to 

 Hooker in 1844, read his joint-paper with Wallace 

 in 1858, and published " The Origin of Species " in 

 1859. These dates are eloquent. It is interesting 

 to notice that Wallace wrote his sketch in a week 

 the thought-stream of his fevered brain in spate. 

 CLEARNESS OF VISION. A third characteristic 

 of the scientific mood is dislike of obscurities, of 

 blurred vision, of fogginess. Ignorance in itself 

 is no particular reproach, if it is not carried too 

 far, but it is essential to know when we know 

 and when we do not. The mole has a strange 

 half-finished lens, which is physically incapable 

 of throwing a precise image on the retina. If 

 there is any image, it must be a blurred tangle 

 of lines. In our busy lives we tend to acquire 

 mole-like lenses in regard to particular orders of 

 facts ; we see certain things clearly, others are 

 blurs ; but the scientific mood is in continual 

 protest against obscurities, insisting upon lucidity. 

 One of Bacon's most historically true aphorisms 

 declares " Truth to emerge sooner from error 



