SUPPOKT BY MILL AND FAWCETT 17 



in 1860, and by a paper read before the British 

 Association by the same author in 1861. Refer- 

 ring to this defence Fawcett wrote to Darwin, 

 July 16, 1861 : 



' I was particularly anxious to point out that the method 

 of investigation pursued was in every respect philosophically 

 correct. I was spending an evening last week with my 

 friend Mr. John Stuart Mill, and I am sure you will be 

 pleased to hear from such an authority that he considers 

 that your reasoning throughout is in the most exact accord- 

 ance with the strict principles of logic. He also says the 

 method of investigation you have followed is the only one 

 proper to such a subject. 



' It is easy for an antagonistic reviewer, when he finds it 

 difficult to answer your arguments, to attempt to dispose of 

 the whole matter by uttering some such commonplace as 

 " This is not a Baconian induction". . . . 



' As far as I am personally concerned, I am sure I ought 

 to be grateful to you, for since my accident nothing has 

 given me so much pleasure as the perusal of your book. 

 Such studies are now a great resource to me.' l 



To this Darwin replied : 



'You could not possibly have told me anything which 

 would have given me more satisfaction than what you say 

 about Mr. Mill's opinion. Until your review appeared I 

 began to think that perhaps I did not understand at all how 

 to reason scientifically.' 2 



In the general truth of his theory Darwin felt 

 an entire confidence born of the long years of 

 pondering over difficulties throughout the whole 

 realm of natural history. And it was the con- 

 sciousness that a secure and undisturbed belief 

 lay behind the fair and cautious statements of the 



1 More Letters, i. 189, 190. a Ibid., 189. 



C 



