DARWIN. 159 



Again, "You have indeed passed a most magnificent 

 eulogium on me, and I wonder that you were not afraid of 

 hearing ' oh, oh,' or sdme other sign of disapprobation. 

 Many persons think that what I have done in science has 

 been much overrated, and I very often think so myself, 

 but my comfort is that I have never consciously done 

 anything to gain applause." Here we see the scientific 

 man occupying the highest possible moral standpoint as 

 a seeker after truth. His election as one of the honorary 

 members of the Physiological Society was to him a 

 " wholly unexpected honour," and a "mark of sympathy" 

 which pleased him in a very high degree. 



"Work," he writes on another occasion, "is my sole 

 pleasure in life." " It is so much more interesting to 

 observe than to write." So long as he could devise ex- 

 periments and mark the results he continued to do it, 

 rather than prepare his voluminous notes on many 

 subjects for publication. "Trollope, in one of his novels, 

 gives as a maxim of constant use by a brickmaker, ' It is 

 dogged as does it,' and I have often and often," wrote 

 Darwin, "thought this is a motto for every scientific 

 worker." How faithfully he adopted it himself those who 

 read through any one of his experimental books can ap- 

 preciate. He habitually read or heard some good novel 

 as a recreation, and took a by no means restricted interest 

 in general literature. 



Considering how usual it is for leading thinkers to be 

 drawn into controversy, even when most desirous of 

 avoiding it, it is remarkable how little Darwin was mixed 

 up with hotly-debated questions. " I hate controversy," 

 he writes, "and it wastes much time, at least with a man 



