246 CHARLES DARWIN 



VIII 



have converted nine men out of ten into aimless 

 invalids ; it was not these qualities, great as they 

 were, which impressed those who were admitted 

 to his intimacy with involuntary veneration, but a 

 certain intense and almost passionate honesty by 

 which all his thoughts and actions were irradiated, 

 as by a central fire. 



It was this rarest and greatest of endowments 

 which kept his vivid imagination and great specu- 

 lative powers within due bounds ; which compelled 

 him to undertake the prodigious labours of original 

 investigation and of reading, upon which his 

 published works are based ; which made him 

 accept criticisms and suggestions from anybody 

 and everybody, not only without impatience, but 

 with expressions of gratitude sometimes almost 

 comically in excess of their value ; which led him 

 to allow neither himself nor others to be deceived 

 by phrases, and to spare neither time nor pains 

 in order to obtain clear and distinct ideas upon 

 every topic with which he occupied himself. 



One could not converse with Darwin without 

 being reminded of Socrates. There was the same 

 desire to find some one wiser than himself; the 

 same belief in the sovereignty of reason ; the same 

 ready humour ; the same sympathetic interest in 

 all the ways and works of men. But instead of 

 turning away from the problems of Nature as 

 hopelessly insoluble, our modern philosopher 

 devoted his whole life to attacking them in the 



