EARLY DAYS 33 



America ? Perhaps so ; perhaps not. For the English 

 intellect does indeed seem more capable than most of 

 uniting high speculative ability with high practical skill 

 and experience : and of that union of rare qualities 

 Darwin himself was a most conspicuous example. It is 

 probable that England has produced more of the great 

 organising and systematising intellects than any other 

 modern country. 



Among those thinkers in his own line who stood 

 more nearly abreast of Darwin in the matter of age, 

 Lyell was some eleven years his senior, and contributed 

 not a little (though quite unconsciously) by his work 

 and conclusions to the formation of Darwin's own pecu- 

 liar scientific opinions. The veteran Owen, who still 

 survives him, was nearly five years older than Darwin, 

 and also helped to a great extent in giving form 

 and exactness to his great contemporary's anatomical 

 ideas. Humboldt, who preceded our English naturalist 

 in the matter of time by no less than forty years, might 

 yet almost rank as coeval in some respects, owing to his 

 long and active life, his late maturity, and the very 

 recent date of his greatest and most thought-compelling 

 work, the * Cosmos ' (begun when Humboldt was 

 seventy-five, and finished when he lacked but ten years 

 of his century), in itself a sort of preparation for due 

 acceptance of the Darwinian theories. In fact, as 

 many as fifty years of their joint lives coincided entirely 

 one with the other's. Agassiz antedated Darwin by two 

 years. On the other hand, among the men who most 

 helped on the recognition of Darwin's theories, Hooker 

 and Lewes were his juniors by eight years, Herbert 

 Spencer by eleven, Wallace by thirteen, and Huxley 



