DARWIN. 143 



has discovered. He believes that the favourable effects 

 of crossing are due to the parents having been subjected 

 to diverse conditions ; but what the precise benefit is, or 

 how it can operate so as to render the offspring more 

 healthy and vigorous, he cannot discern. "And so it is," 

 he observes, "with many other facts, which are so obscure 

 that we stand in awe before the mystery of life." So it 

 is. The man who probably understood nature better 

 than any man who has ever lived, who had not only asked 

 her multitudinous questions, but to whom very many 

 answers had been undoubtedly vouchsafed in response 

 to his persevering, humble, diligent, acute questioning, 

 acknowledges that he knows little; that much remains 

 a mystery. But from all we know of him, from his 

 books, his letters, his friends, his was the joy of a soul 

 in sympathy with the master power of the universe. He 

 marched continually on the confines of the unknown, 

 and to him was granted the felicity of largely extending 

 the boundaries of the known. 



Again, in 1877, a new work proceeded from Darwin's 

 pen, " The Different Forms of Flowers in Plants of the 

 same Species," dedicated to Professor Asa Gray. It 

 gathered up the contents of numerous papers read before 

 the Linnean Society, with later additions, and showed 

 conclusively how many plants possess distinctive forms 

 of flowers in the same species, adapted to, and in some 

 cases absolutely necessitating, reciprocal fertilisation 

 through the visits of insects. It gave evidence of all 

 the well-known Darwinian characteristics of long-con- 

 tinued labour, thought, and experiment. 



In iSSo "The Power of Movement in Plants" was ex- 



