#7. 73.] TO J. D. HOOKER. 751 
and characters over against them, of as great account 
as they, in whose mirrors they are reflected, whom 
they excite and delight, and without whose interest 
they would be blanks. This combination comes out 
in his great generalizations, in the bold and yet con- 
siderate way in which he deals with Darwin’s ideas, 
and in the notices of so many of his scientific friends, 
whom we feel that he was interested in as men, and 
not only as scientific inquirers. The sweetness and 
charity, which we remember so well in living con- 
verse, is always on the lookout for some pleasant 
feature in the people of whom he writes, and to give 
kindliness and equity to his judgment. 
And what a life of labors it was! I am perfectly 
aghast at the amount of grinding work of which 
these papers are the indirect evidence. .. . 
For they [his religious views] were a most charac- 
teristic part of the man, and the seriousness and 
earnest conviction with which he let them be known 
had, I am convineed, a most wholesome effect on the 
development of the great scientific theory in which he 
was so much interested. It took off a great deal of 
the theological edge, which was its danger, both to 
those who upheld and those who opposed it. I am 
sure things would have gone more crossly and un- 
reasonably, if his combination of fearless religion and 
clearness of mind, and wise love of truth, had not 
told on the controversy. 
TO J. D. HOOKER. 
CAMBRIDGE, June 9, 1884. 
Your last is of May 24th from the Camp, and gives 
us on the whole better accounts of your invalids. 
Bentham at Boultibrooke! I wonder if he would care 
