III. 



STARTING POINTS. METHOD OF STARTING IN- 

 VESTIGATIONS. ISOLATED PHENOMENA. 



THE starting points of many of Darwin's 

 researches were furnished him by other 

 intelligent men. In many cases these men not 

 only were in possession of the facts, but had 

 hit upon their true explanation. With the 

 facts thrust upon them, with enough reasoning 

 ability to pursue them, they gave away their 

 heritage, luckily to one who knew its value. 

 In his frank but modest analysis of his own 

 mental qualities he said of himself, as already 

 quoted, " I think I am superior to the com- 

 mon run of men in noticing things which 

 easily escape attention, and in observing them 

 carefully. . . . From my earliest youth I have 

 had the strongest desire to understand or ex- 

 plain whatever I observed, . . . that is, to group 

 all facts under some general laws." 1 There 

 can be no doubt that his great interest in 

 apparently little things, and his efforts to make 



1 Life and Letters, Vol. I. p. 83. 



