XIV 

 IN MEMORIAM: CHARLES DARWIN 



TO-DAY, while all that was mortal of 

 Charles Darwin is borne to its last 

 resting-place in Westminster Abbey, 

 by the side of Sir Isaac Newton, it seems a fit- 

 ting occasion to utter a few words of tribute to 

 the memory of the beautiful and glorious life 

 that has just passed away from us. Though 

 Mr. Darwin had more than completed his 

 threescore and ten years, and though his life 

 had been rich in achievement and crowned 

 with success such as is but seldom vouchsafed 

 to man, yet the news of his death has none the 

 less impressed us with a sense of sudden and 

 premature bereavement. For on the one hand 

 the time would never have come when those of 

 us who had learned the inestimable worth of 

 such a teacher and friend could have felt ready 

 to part with him ; and on the other hand Mr, 

 Darwin was one whom the gods, for love of him, 

 had endowed with perpetual youth, so that his 

 death could never seem otherwise than prema- 

 ture. As Mr. Galton has well said, the period 

 of physical youth say from the fifteenth to 

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