WHAT WE OWE TO DARWIN 41 



in the main, the view which has affected, not 

 merely our ideas of the development of living 

 organisms, but our ideas upon politics, upon 

 sociology, ideas which cover the whole domain of 

 human terrestrial activity. He is the fount and 

 origin, and he will stand for all time as the man 

 who has made this great, and, as I think, beneficent 

 revolution in the mode in which educated men 

 can see the history, not merely of their own institu- 

 tions, not merely of their own race, but of 

 everything which has that unexplained attribute 

 of life, everything that lives on the surface of 

 the globe or within the depths of the ocean/' 1 



In any case, we must agree with what Huxley 

 says of Darwin : " It is only by pursuing his 

 method, by that wonderful single-mindedness, 

 devotion to truth, readiness to sacrifice all things 

 for the advance of definite knowledge, that 

 we can hope to come any nearer than we are 

 at present to the truths which he struggled to 

 attain/' 



Darwin was no metaphysician ; he always kept 

 very close to earth which is half the secret of 

 the persistent strength of his teaching. For this 

 reason, most appropriately, Prof. R. M. Wenley 

 ended a very suggestive address 2 on Darwin by 

 quoting, in reference to Darwin's services, the 

 fine words of a Scottish poet : 



Man's thought is like Antaeus, and must be 

 Touched to the ground of Nature to regain 

 Fresh force, new impulse, else it would remain 

 Dead in the grip of strong Authority. 



1 Nature, July 1st, 1909. 



Popular Science Monthly (1909), voL Ixxiv. p. 395. 



