52 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



with hands, removed him from human sight. That 

 there could be two continents was deemed impossible, 

 for one God could not watch them both. That the 

 earth was the central and sole inhabited planet rested 

 on the same limited conception of God. That the be- 

 ginning of all things was a little while ago is another 

 phase of the same idea, as is the idea of special creation 

 for every form of animal and plant. 



A Chinese sage, whose words remain while his name 

 is lost in the ages between him and us, has said: " He 

 can not be concealed ; he will appear without showing 

 himself, effect renovation without moving, and create 

 perfection without acting. It is the law of heaven and 

 earth, whose way is solid, substantial, vast, and un- 

 changing." 



Not long ago I walked across the Kentish fields to 

 Down, a pilgrim to the, shrine of Darwin. I saw the 



stately mansion in which he lived a 

 Darwin s home. , 



great stone house surrounded by trees 



and shut in by an ivy-covered wall. I talked with the vil- 

 lagers of Down, the landlord of the George Inn, and the 

 working people who had been his neighbours all their 

 lives, and to whom Charles Darwin was not the world- 

 renowned investigator, but the kindly friend. His love 

 for his wife and family, his love for flowers and birds 

 and trees, his love for all things true and beautiful all 

 this forms the fair background before which rises the 

 noblest work in science. 



Forty years ago obloquy and derision were heaped 

 upon the name of Darwin from all sides, sometimes even 

 from his scientific associates. He outlived it all, and 

 when he died his mother country paid him the highest 

 tribute in her power. He lies in Westminster Abbey, by 

 the side of Isaac Newton, one of the noblest of the long 

 line of men of science whose lives have made his own 



