WHAT WE OWE TO DAIRWIN 33 



and reality is part of the unendiAg business of 

 science. Faraday said that the scientific investi- 

 gator should be "not a respecter ojf persons, but 

 of things," It was Huxley who s^oke of "that 

 enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticista of veracity, 

 which is a greater possession than much learning ; 

 a nobler gift than the power of increasing know- 

 ledge." Darwin was a fine illustration of this 

 passion for facts ; there have been few naturalists 

 more careful as to data. He began collecting facts 

 in regard to the work of earthworms when a 

 young student in Edinburgh, and he pubUshed 

 his fascinating book the year in which he died. 

 His gardener said : " He moons about in the 

 garden, and I have seen him stand doing nothing 

 before a flower ten minutes at a time." 



Scientific Caution. — Following from the pas- 

 sion of facts is a second characteristic of the 

 scientific mood, namely, cautiousness, or distrust 

 of finahty and dogmatism of statement. Prof. 

 W. K. Brooks says, in his " Foundations of 

 Zoology " : " The hardest of intellectual virtues 

 is philosophic doubt, and the ment&l vice to 

 which we are most prone is our tendency.to believe 

 that lack of evidence for an opinion is a reason 

 for believing something else. . . . Suspenced judg- 

 ment is the greatest triumph of intellectual dis- 

 cipline." As Huxley said : " The assertion that 

 outstrips the evidence is not only a bluncer but 

 a crime." As Karl Pearson says : " The scentific 

 man has, above all things, to strive at self-elimina- 

 tion in his judgments, to provide an argument vhich 

 is as true for each individual mind as for his 

 own." What a fine temper there is in Darvtin's 

 statement — " I have steadily endeavoured to 



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