56 CHARLES DARWIN 



province. Darwin's mind with all its vastness was not, 

 indeed, profoundly analytical. The task of working 

 out the psychological and metaphysical aspects of 

 evolution fell rather to the great organising and sys- 

 tematising intellect of Herbert Spencer. But within 

 the realm of material fact, and of the widest possible 

 inferences based upon such fact, Darwin's keen and 

 comprehensive spirit ranged freely over the whole 

 illimitable field of nature. * No one/ says Buckle 

 with unwonted felicity, ' can have a firm grasp of any 

 science if, by confining himself to it, he shuts out the 

 light of analogy. He may, no doubt, work at the 

 details of his subject ; he may be useful in adding to 

 its facts ; he will never be able to enlarge its philosophy. 

 For the philosophy of every department depends on its 

 connection with other departments, and must therefore 

 be sought at their points of contact. It must be looked 

 for in the place where they touch and coalesce : it lies, 

 not in the centre of each science, but on the confines 

 and margin.' This profound truth Darwin fully and 

 instinctively realised. It was the all-embracing catho- 

 licity of his manifold interests that raised him into the 

 greatest pure biologist of all time, and that enabled 

 him to co-ordinate with such splendid results the raw 

 data of so many distinct and separate sciences. And 

 even as early as the days of the cruise in the ' Beagle,' 

 that innate catholicity had already asserted itself in 

 full vigour. Now it is a party of Gauchos throwing 

 the bola that engages for the moment his eager atten- 

 tion ; and now again it is a group of shivering Fuegians, 

 standing naked with their long hair streaming in the 

 wind on a snowy promontory of their barren coast. 



