LEAF AND TENDRIL 



as the natural historian or the human historian is 

 sound upon his facts, we know where we stand. 

 But the faker is a faker because he disregards the 

 facts. Froude uses more imagination in dealing 

 with his material than Freeman did, hence he has 

 much greater charm and power of style. It is only 

 when he disregards the fact, or takes unwarranted 

 liberi;ies with it, that Freeman can justly criticise him. 



There has been no such luminous interpreter of 

 the facts of natural history as Darwin; he read 

 their meaning as no one else had ever before done. 

 His reason and his imagination went hand in hand. 

 But was there ever a mind more loyal to the exact 

 truth ? Every man who brought him a fact brought 

 him material for the edifice he was so intent upon 

 building — an edifice which the human mind since 

 his day is dwelling in with more and more content- 

 ment. 



It is in the interpretation of natural facts and 

 phenomena that temperament, imagination, emo- 

 tional sensibility, come in play. In all subjective 

 fields — in religion, politics, art, philosophy — one 

 man's truth may be another man's falsehood, but 

 in the actual concrete world of observation and 

 experience, if we all see correctly, we shall all see 

 alike. Blue is blue and red is red, and our color- 

 blindness does not alter the fact. In emotional and 

 imaginative fields a man may be " telling the truth 

 if he tells what he sees as he sees it," but in the field 

 112 



