CHARLES DARWIN. 435 



saw its strong points, but he foresaw its limitations, indicated 

 most of the objections in advance of his opponents, weighed 

 them with judicial mind, and where he could not obviate 

 them, seemed never disposed to underrate their force. Al- 

 though naturally disposed to make the most of his theory, he 

 distinguished between what he could refer to known causes 

 and what thus far is not referable to them. Consequently, 

 he kept clear of that common confusion of thought which 

 supposes that natural selection originates the variations which 

 it selects. He believed, and he has shown it to be probable, 

 that external conditions induce the actions and changes in the 

 living plant or animal which may lead on to the difference 

 between one species and another; but he did not maintain 

 that they produced the changes, or were sufficient scientifically 

 to explain them. Unlike most of his contemporaries in this 

 respect, he appears to have been thoroughly penetrated by the 

 idea that the whole physiological action of the plant or animal 

 is a response of the living organism to the action of the sur- 

 roundings. 



The judicial fairness and openness of Darwin's mind, his 

 penetration and sagacity, his wonderful power of eliciting the 

 meaning of things which had escaped questioning by their 

 very commonness, and of discerning the great significance of 

 causes and interactions which had been disregarded on ac- 

 count of their supposed insignificance, his method of reason- 

 ing 1 close to the facts and in contact with the solid ground of 

 nature, his aptness in devising fruitful and conclusive exper- 

 iments, and in prosecuting nice researches witli simple but 

 effectual appliances, and the whole rare combination of quali- 

 ties which made himfacUe prinu pa in biological investiga- 

 tion, — all these gifts are so conspicuously manifest in his 

 published writings, and are so fully appreciated, that there if 

 no need to celebrate them in an obituary memorial. The 

 writings also display in n<> small degree the spirit of the man, 

 and to this not a little of their persuasiveness i- due. His 

 desire to ascertain the truth, and to present it purely to his 

 readers, is everywhere apparent. Conspicuous, also, is the 

 absence of all trace of controversy and of everything like 



