Charles Darwin. 4( 



lings which had escaped questioning by their ver 

 and of discerning the great significance of caust 

 and interactions which had been disregarded on account ( 

 their supposed insignificance, his method of reasoning close t 

 the facts and in contact with the solid ground of nature, hi 

 aptness in devising fruitful and conclusive experiments, and i 



facile princeps in biological investigation, — all these gifts are s 

 conspicuously manifest in his published writings, and are s 

 fully appreciated, that there is no need to celebrate them in a 

 obituary memorial. The writings also display in no smal 

 degree the spirit of the man, ami to this not a little of thei 



persuasiveness is due. His desire to ascertain the 



truth, and to 



present it purely to his readers, is everywhere a pp 



arent. Con- 



spicuous, also, is the absence of all trace of contro 



versy and of 



everything like pretension; and this is remarkable 



, considering 



how censure and how praise were heaped upon 



him without 



stint. He does not teach didactically, but take* 



i the reader 



"long with him as his companion in observation ar 



td in experi- 



ment. And in the same spirit, instead of showing 



pique to an 



opponent, he seems always to regard him as a h 



lelper in his 



search for the truth. Those privileged to know h 



im well will 



certify that he was one of the most'kindly and cl 



.arming, un- 



affected, simple-hearted, "and lovable of men. 





How far and how long the Darwinian theory wil 



I hold good, 



the future will determine. But in its essential ele: 



ments, apart 



from d priori philosophizing, with which its author 



had nothing 



to do, it is an advance from which it is evidently ii 



npossible to 



recede. As has been said of the theory of the Cor 



iservation of 



Energy, so of this: "The proof of this great ge 



neralization, 



like that of all other generalizations, lies maimy 

 that the evidence in its favor is continually- ammie 



in the fact 



