GENIUS AND TALENT. 315 



has ever yet produced, with the one doubtful 

 exception of John Fiiixnum. 



The hite Mr. Darwin, the foiyider of the 

 modern pliilosophical scliool of natural history, 

 was perhaps tlie most striking example that ever 

 lived of genius considered as an infinite capacity 

 for taking trouble. With a marvellously wide 

 and comprehensive brain, capable of organizing 

 and arranging the vastest masses of solid facts, 

 and of discovering and formulating the profound 

 est underlying scientific principles, Darwin could 

 still devote his time with the utmost patience to 

 collecting and observing the minutest details of 

 habit or function in climbing plants, or insect-eat- 

 ing leaves, or common earthworms. No point 

 was too small for liis vigorous intelligence, if only 

 by its aid some light could be thrown upon a 

 doubtful process in the economy of nature; no 

 pains were too great for his inexhaustible pa- 

 tience, if only some truth was to be discovered or 

 some principle made clear. The same man who 

 could survey the whole field of geological time 

 with his calm and far-seeing eye, and who could 

 point out the laws of development for the entire 

 vegetable and animal world, could also bend his 

 attention for hours together to the pettiest and 

 most trivial details of how the root of a sprouting 

 pea twisted in the sunlight, or how a peacock dis- 

 played his gorgeous tail, in the absence of any 



