II 



THE PERSONALITY OF CHARLES 

 DARWIN 



Written from the notes of a speech delivered at the 

 Darwin Banquet of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, Baltimore, Jan. 1, 1909. 



IT is of special interest, on the evening of this 

 New Year's Day so happily devoted to the memory 

 of Charles Darwin, to think of the man himself, 

 and trace the influence of his personal qualities 

 in helping to achieve the vast intellectual trans- 

 formation of the past half-century. 



Professor H. H. Turner has shown how nearly 

 the mighty genius of Newton was lost to the 

 world (see pp. 85, 86), and in the case of Darwin 

 the margin of safety appears to have been even 

 narrower. In the first place it was necessary that 

 he should be freed from the continuous labour of 

 income-making and from all those strains which 

 are at times inevitable even in the easiest of pro- 

 fessional careers. Darwin always recognized his 

 dependence upon this indispensable condition, 

 and remembered the debt of gratitude which 

 he owed to the ability and generosity of his 

 father. ' You have no idea during how short 



