106 Darwinism and Other Essays. - 



after much cross-questioning of the author, I 

 never felt quite sure that I grasped his central 

 meaning. 



It was in such detached essays or monographs 

 as these that much was to have been expected 

 from Mr. Wright, especially in the application of 

 Darwinian conceptions to the study of psychol- 

 ogy. Could he have been induced to undertake 

 an elaborate treatise, we should have seen the 

 philosophy of Mill and Bain carried to its furthest 

 development and illustrated with Darwinian sug- 

 gestions by a writer not in sympathy with the 

 general doctrine of evolution, an interesting 

 and instructive spectacle. But I doubt if Mr. 

 Wright would ever have undertaken an extensive 

 work. To sit down and map out a subject for 

 systematic exploration would have been a pro- 

 ceeding wholly foreign to his habits. Once 

 launched out on a shoreless sea of speculation, he 

 would brood and ponder for weeks, while bright 

 determining thoughts would occur to him at seem- 

 ing haphazard, like the rational combinations of 

 phenomena in his theory of "cosmic weather." 

 To his suggestive and stimulating conversation 

 this unsystematic habit gave additional charm. 

 An evening's talk with Mr. Wright always seemed 

 to me one of the richest of intellectual entertain- 



