14 CHARLES DARWIN. 



conditions. Of these, the most important have been the love 

 of science unboun^d patience in long reflecting over any 

 subject industry in observing and collecting facts and a 

 fair share of invention as well as of common sense. With 

 such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that 

 I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of 

 scientific men on some important points." 



We also know from other sources that Darwin looked 

 upon the creative powers as essential to scientific 

 progress. Thus he wrote to Wallace in 1857 : " I 

 am a firm believer that without speculation there is 

 no good and original observation." He also says in 

 the " Autobiography " : "I have steadily endeavoured 

 to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, 

 however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming 

 one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to 

 be opposed to it." 



I have thought it worth while to insist thus 

 strongly on the high value attached by Darwin to 

 hypothesis, controlled by observation, in view of 

 certain recent attacks upon this necessary weapon 

 for scientific advance. Thus Bateson, in his " Materials 

 for the Study of Variation" (London, 1894), p. 7, 

 says : " In the old time the facts of Nature were 

 beautiful in themselves and needed not the rouge of 

 speculation to quicken their charm, but that was long 

 ago before Modern Science was born." The author 

 does not specify the period in the history of science 

 when discovery proceeded without hypothesis. A 

 study of the earlier volumes of the Philosophical 

 Transactions reveals a far greater interest in specula- 



