74 THE PERSONALITY OF CHARLES DARWIN 



to the same friend, ' . . . tell Oliver I now do not 

 care at all how many tendrils he makes axial, 

 which at one time was a cruel torture to me.' l 

 Alluding to a hypothesis on the relation between 

 the order of development of parts in the individual 

 and the complexity of its organization, he wrote 

 to Huxley, who had expressed an adverse 

 opinion : ' I shall, of course, not allude to this 

 subject, which I rather grieve about, as 1 wished 

 it to be true ; but, alas ! a scientific man ought 

 to have no wishes, no affections a mere heart of 

 stone.' 2 These quotations taken alone would 

 give an utterly wrong impression of Darwin as 

 a scientific man. Two passages will be sufficient 

 to show that his well-balanced mind was secure 

 against the dangers of a too great devotion to the 

 creations of his brilliant imagination. ' It is 

 a golden rule,' he wrote to John Scott, ' which 

 I try to follow, to put every fact which is opposed 

 to one's preconceived opinion in the strongest 

 light. Absolute accuracy is the hardest merit 

 to attain, and the highest merit. Any deviation 

 is ruin.' 3 Again, he wrote in his autobiography 

 in 1881 : 



' I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as 

 to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and 

 I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts 

 are shown to be opposed to it. Indeed, I have had no 

 choice but to act in this manner, for with the exception of 



1 June 2, 1864. More Letters, ii. 343. 2 July 9, 1857. Ibid., i. 98. 



8 July 2, 1863 (?). More Letters, ii. 324. See also Life and Letters, 

 iii. 54, and ibid., i. 87, where Darwin speaks of always making 

 a note of hostile facts. 



