34 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



keep my mind! free so as to give up any hypothesis, 

 however mucj;h beloved — and I cannot resist 

 forming one oil every subject — as soon as facts are 

 shown to be opposed to it." " I had," he says, 

 " during many years followed a golden rule, namely, 

 that whenever! a published fact, a new observation 

 or thought came across me, which was opposed 

 to my generall results, to make a memorandum 

 of it without jfail, and at once ; for I had found, 

 by experience, (that such facts and thoughts were far 

 more apt to esqapefrom the memory than favourable 

 ones." Let us ijemember how Darwin opened his first 

 note-book in |l837, conceived the idea of natural 

 selection in li338, sent a sketch of the theory to 

 Hooker in 18^4, read his joint-paper with Wallace 

 in 1858, and pjublished " The Origin of Species " in 

 1859. These Bates are eloquent. It is interesting 

 to notice that (Wallace wrote his sketch in a week 

 — the thought (Stream of his fevered brain in spate. 

 Clearness oe Vision. — A third characteristic 

 of the scien/ific mood is dishke of obscurities, of 

 blurred vis/ion, of fogginess. Ignorance in itself 

 is no particular reproach, if it is not carried too 

 far, but it is essential to know when we know 

 and when we do not. The mole has a strange 

 half-finiEined lens, which is physically incapable 

 of throwing a precise image on the retina. If 

 there is any image, it must be a blurred tangle 

 of Hne/s. In our busy lives we tend to acquire 

 mole-like lenses ia regard to particular orders of 

 facts J we see certain things clearly, others are 

 blurs'^; but the scientific mood is ia continual 

 protiest against obscurities, insisting upon lucidity. 

 One of Bacon's most historically true aphorisms 

 de;clares " Truth to emerge sooner from error 



