1888.] 189 



had " greatly troubled " Darwin, he says, " if, as I must think, external conditions 

 produce little direct effect — what determines each particular variation ; what makes 

 a tuft of feathers come on a cock's head ; or moss on a moss rose P" (vol. ii, p. 233). 

 In the same strain " we may ask in vain why one mouse has longer ears than another 

 mouse, and one plant more pointed leaves than another plant ?" (vol. iii, p. 25). In 

 the Quarterly Eeview (April, 1869), Mr. Wallace wrote, "we must therefore admit 

 the possibility that in the development of the human race, a higher intelligence 

 (than man's) has guided the same laws for nobler ends." From this Darwin differed 

 "grievously" (vol. iii, p. 116) ; further on he says, "I fear we shall never quite 

 understand each other." Of Hooker's Introduction to the New Zealand Flora he 

 complains that " parts take the wind completely out of my sails "***"! 

 shall gnash my teeth and abuse you for having put so many hostile parts so con- 

 foundedly well." Elsewhere he thanks Hooker "for the dose of soft solder ;" he 

 tells Lyell, referring to his hesitation as to the immutability of species, "you cut my 

 throat and your own throat " (vol. ii, p. 341), and he felt aggrieved that Herbert 

 Spencer should be his " superior in the master art of wriggling." 



Of Mr. Mivart's " Genesis of Species ' (1871) he finds the " book is producing 

 a great effect against ' Natural Selection,' and more especially against me " * * * 

 " I feel very doubtful how far I shall succeed in answering him " (vol. iii, p. 144 & 146). 

 In the 6th edition of the " Origin," Darwin devoted a chapter to these objections, 

 the more serious of which was the absence of " the infinitely numerous fine tran- 

 sitional forms " " of the countless generations of countless species which have 

 certainly existed " (Orig., p. 408). 



In a letter to Karl Semper there is the following statement : "As our knowledge 

 advances, very slight differences, considered by systematists as of no importance in 

 structure, are continually found to be functionally important" (vol. iii, p. 161). 

 Here many will wish that Darwin had followed Lyell's advice in a letter dated Oc- 

 tober 3rd, 1859, that he should in a future edition " here and there insert an actual 

 case to relieve the vast number of abstract propositions" (vol. ii, p. 206). 



" One of his greatest services to the study of Natural History is," says his 

 biographer, " the revival of Teleology " (vol. iii, p. 255) ; yet, in regard to chance 

 and design, Darwin writes, " again I say I am, and shall ever remain, in a hopeless 

 muddle " (vol. ii, p. 354). See also vol. i, p. 313. 



Of Darwin's extreme candour, modesty, and love of truth, there is ample 

 evidence. As to the latter, Mr. Eomanes relates that once, at one o'clock in the 

 morning, when sitting in a room at Down with one of the sons, Mr. Darwin appeared 

 at the door in dressing gown and slippers, to correct a remark made the previous 

 evening, that he " was most affected by the emotions of the sublime when he stood 

 upon one of the summits of the Cordillera {sic) and surveyed the magnificent 

 pi'ospect around," now he was sure that he " felt it even more in the forests of 

 Brazil" (vol. iii, p. 55). 



Mr. Darwin was an avowed Agnostic, not an Atheist. He did not believe in 

 revelation (vol. i, p. 308) ; he had come to see that the Old Testament was " no more 

 to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos." But no man led a purer and, 

 but for his constant ill-health, a happier life. " His Natural History studies had 

 been the solace of what might have been a painful existence." At the last he said. 



