CLASSIFICA TION. 9 1 



ing together on the two islands, but that they 

 lived apart, each on its own island, and that 

 they were closely instead of distantly related, 

 that several islands were stocked, each with 

 its own species, or perhaps variety, of the same 

 kind of animal, that struck him with wonder. 

 These facts haunted him, and drove him to look 

 for others like them. Upon his arrival at home 

 his insect collection proved the same law. He 

 had fortunately kept the plants of the different 

 islands separate, and Hooker, at Darwin's re- 

 quest to see whether the law held good for them, 

 found it to be so. 1 Darwin had unwittingly 

 carried one of Nature's beautiful classifications 

 home to England with him. Keen insight into 

 the relation of facts to one another had enabled 

 him to recognize three striking examples of 

 Nature's arrangements. 



The habit of grouping facts to extract the 

 truth from them was indispensable to Darwin's 

 work, for he constantly dealt with large bodies 

 of facts that were manageable in no other way. 

 It will be seen how difficult it is even for a 

 powerful observer to see facts for which he is 

 not looking, even though they lie under his 

 feet. An act of classification, to be worth 

 much, must usually be an effort to answer 



1 Naturalist's Voyage around the World, pp. 393-398. 



