Sept. 28, 18S2] 



NATURE 



535 



it is also implied that the end has come to the dreary period of 

 v olent literary warfare ; and we may give all the more emphatic 

 expression to our jubilant feeling of triumph in this respect, that 

 we have ourselves been largely involved in those hard battles, 

 ."-eeing, ho sever, that according to Heraclites, struggle is the father 

 nf all things, it was not po-sible that the struggle for existence 

 should spare the theory which itself laid down this principle and 

 raised it to be the most valuable instrument in its store-house of 

 arguments. With all the greater welcome we now greet the new 

 period of peace following on that victory, and of quiet progress 

 in which we 1 00k forward to the fairest fruits in the new' course; of 

 inquiry. It well become; the Association of German Naturalists 

 and Physicians who hive repeatedly bean witnesses of the loud 

 t jmult of those battles, now when they are happily concluded, t 

 sanction the treaty of peace, and to solemnly recognise the 

 doctrine of development as the sure foundation-stone of scientific 

 inquiry. 



If we no* look for the cause; of the extraordinary effect pro- 

 duced in such a short time by the Darwinian doctrines, in the 

 teeth of the most violent opposition, we will find them by no 

 means exclusively in the convincing force of their inherent truth, 

 at atso in the peculiarly favourable outward circumstances in 

 which they entered the scientific world. Not the least of these 

 favourable conditi >ns lies in the rare characteristic qualities of 

 the man on who u devolved the solution of such a gigantic task. 

 Charles Darwin united in himself a wealth of diverse intellectual 

 gift; which generally are to be found oily apart. His fund of 

 knowledge and his acumen as a naturalist were just as great as 

 his farsightedness and comprehensiveness as philosopher. To 

 what degree he harmonim-ly combined these t.vo sides of 

 intellectual activity, often in conflict with each other, may be 

 inferred from the fact thit many shortsighted experiment 

 ■ ilisls see in him only the conscientious observer and inge- 

 nious experimentalist, regretting that his theory should be 

 but spe.ulative aberration ; while on the other hand many high 

 a piring thinkers look down with great depreciation on his 

 experimental achievements, but admire the acuteness of his 

 judgment and the lucidity of his logical train of thought. In 

 this respect he reminds us of our two greatest German natura- 

 1 -ts, Johannes M tiller and Carl Ernst Baer. If the latter in his 

 title-page described hi; classical "History of the Develop- 

 ment of Animal," j< "'Observation and Reflection,'' Darwin 

 might say the same of all his works. With these rare powers of 



servation and ju Ig nent were associated otter noble qualities of 

 character greatly enhancing their value and profit ; indefatigable 

 perseverance in the pit-suit of his aims, scrupulous conscientious- 

 ness in grouping the assured results, purest aspiration after 

 natural truth, anil opm simplicity in communicating his conclu- 

 sions. No less praiseworthy was the extraordinary modesty 

 with which he set forth his vie.vs, and the mild meekness with 

 which, while answering all the sharp objections of his opponents, 

 s 1 far as they were to the purpose, he simply ignored personal 

 aspers : ons. 



Truly admirable i, the patience and forethought with which 

 1 larwin t iok in hand and carried out the weightiest task of his 

 life— the explanation of the origin of animal and vegetable 

 species through natural selection. The first basis to this 

 work \ias laid in his t.venty-third year, when in 1S32, in 

 .South America, he drew up geographical and palaeontological 

 oh ervati ins on the animal .-pedes of this continent. The rich 

 observations he accumulated in that voyage round the world, a 

 voyage lasting five years, and of such consequence to him, did 

 not, however, come to their full utilisation till long afterwards. 

 The injury to his health wr night by the severe hard-hip, to 

 which that voyage subjected him forced him to withdraw com- 

 pletely from the restles turmoil of London, and to reduce his 

 circle of personal friends to the narrowest compass. In 1842, in 

 the thirty-third year of his age, he betook himself to his quiet, 

 idyllic country -eat of Down, lying gracefully between the green 

 meadows and the wooded hills of the sweet county of Kent. 



In the harmonious solitude of this verdant seat of the Muses 

 Darwin lived full forty years, devoting himself singly and ex- 

 clusively to the continuous study of nature and to the solution of 

 the great problem she had revealed to him. Practising, him- 

 self, for many years the active work of gardener and cattle- 

 rearer, he could see under his own eyes the transformation of the 

 corporeal forms of plants and animals. Examining into the 

 physiological causes of these transformations, the laws, namely, 

 of Inheritance and Adaptation, he clearly perceived that in the 

 domain of uncultivated as well as of cultivated nature the same I 



mechanical laws condition change of species. He became con- 

 vinced that artificial and natural rearing rested essentially on the 

 same processes of selection. What in the one case is produced 

 in a short time by the purposively active will of man for his own 

 advantage is in the other produced in a much longer time by the 

 purposelessly active " Straggle for Existence" to the advantage 

 of the transformed organisms. 



But although Darwin had early conceived this funda- 

 mental thought of his "Theory of Selection," and throughout 

 many years had collected the richest material of observations in 

 its evidence, he could not for a long time resolve on the publica- 

 tion of his theory. It would ever appear to him too full of gaps, 

 the mass of facts required for its support too defective, the chain 

 of inferences too incomplete. He was ever wanting to accumu- 

 late fresh evidence, to bring ever more light from all sides on the 

 que;tions in hand, and as far as possible to anticipate and refute 

 objections to his conclusions. Perhaps in the end he would 

 never have come to communicate the treasures of his knowledge 

 to the world, had it not been for an outward impulse which 

 constrained him to thi; step. At length then, in 1859, afcer the 

 author had completed his fiftieth year, appeared his era-inaugu- 

 rating chief work on the " Origin of Species," a work to which 

 all the rest of his writings are but deductions and commentaries. 

 This event happened just a full century after Caspar Friedrich 

 Wolff in Germany had discovered the true development of the 

 animal germ, and ju-t half a century after Lamarck in France 

 had prophetically propounded the principles established by 

 Darwin. 



The extraordinary modesty and unassu ningness which Darwin 

 showed to such a degree on the subject of the publication of the 

 most important of his writings, displayed itself also on all hands 

 in his extensive correspondence, and not less in his personal 

 intercourse. Every one who had the happiness of making his 

 personal acquaintance could not part from him without a feeling 

 of the sincerest reverence and highest appreciation. Were it 

 here allowed me to intercalate a few words on my personal 

 meeting with Darwin, I would give expression especially to the 

 high admiration of Darwin as an ideal man with which my three 

 visits to him in Down inspired me. The first time was in 

 October 1S66, on the occasion of a voyage I was undertaking to 

 the Canary Islands. I had just completed the " General Morpho- 

 logy," a work in which I had ventured on the experiment of mecha- 

 nically establishing the science of organic forms on the basis of 

 the theory of filiation as reformed by Darwin. By means of the 

 proof-sheets I had sent him, Darwin was acquainted with my 

 essay, and took all the more interest in it because these morpho- 

 logic investigations lay rather remote from his own studies, which 

 were principally experimental. It was, therefore, with the 

 greate-t pleasure that I responded to an invitation to come to 

 Down, which he had sent me during my short stay in London. 



In Darwin's own carriage, which he had thoughtfully seat 

 for my convenience to the railway station, I drove one sunny 

 morning in October through the graceful hilly landscape of Kent, 

 that, with the che juerei foliage of its woods, with its stretches 

 of purple heath, yellow broom and evergreen oak-, was arrayed 

 in the fairest autunnal dress. As the carriage drew up in front 

 of Darwin's pleasant country-house clad in a vesture of ivy, and 

 em'oovere I in elms, there stepped out to meet me f ro n the 

 shah- porch overgrown with creeping plants, the great natura- 

 list himself, a tall and venerable figure with the broad shoulders 

 of a 1 atlas supporting a world of thought-, Irs Jupiter-like fore- 

 head highly and broadly arched, as in the ca-e of Goethe, and 

 deeply furrowed by the plough of mental labour; hi; kindly 

 mild eyes looking forth under the shadow of prominent brows ; 

 his amiable mouth surrouided by a copious silver-white beard. 

 The cordial preposessing expression of the whole face, the gentle, 

 mild voice, the slow, deliberate utterance, the natural and na'iv,: 

 train of ideas which marked his conversation, captivated my 

 whole heart in the first hour of our meeting, just as his great 

 work had formerly, on my first reading it, taken my whole 

 understanding by storm. I fancied a lofty world-sage out 

 of Hellenic antiquity— a Socrates or Aristotle — stood alive 

 before me. 



Our conversation, of course, turned principally on the subject 

 which lay nearest the hearts of us both— on the progress and 

 prospects of the history of development. Those prospects at 

 that time — sixteen years ago — were bad enough, for the highest 

 authorities had for the most part set themselves against the new- 

 doctrines. With touching modesty Darwin said that his whole 

 work was but a weak attempt to explain in a natural way the 



