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DARWIN AND HUMBOLDT. 



special mental equipments of a 

 psychologist, he should have exert- 

 ed so enormous an influence upon 

 psychology, our surprise must vanish 

 when we consider the matter a little 

 more attentively. For the truth of 

 this matter is that psychology, in 

 being the science furthest removed 

 from the reach of experimental means 

 and inductive method, is the science 

 which has longest remained in the 

 trammels of a priori analysis and 

 metaphysical thought ; therefore Dar- 

 win, by casting the eye of a philo- 

 sophical naturalist upon the facts, 

 without reference to the cobwebs 

 which the specialists had woven 

 around them, was able to gather 

 directly much new information as to 

 their meaning. And the rare sagac- 

 ity with which he observed and 

 reflected upon the phenomena of mind 

 merely as phenomena or facts of 

 nature, led to the remarkable results 

 which we shall presently have to con- 

 sider — results which have done more 

 than any other to unmuffle the young 

 science, of psychology from the swad- 

 dling clothes of its mediaeval nursery. 

 The portions of Mr. Darwin's 

 writings which refer to mental 

 science are very limited in extent — 

 comprising, in fact, only one chapter 

 in the Origin of Species, three in 

 the Descent of Man, and a short 

 paper on the development of in- 

 fantile intelligence. The import- 

 ance of the effect produced by 

 them is therefore rendered all the 

 more remarkable ; but in this con- 

 nection it seems desirable to state that 

 the chapters to which we haA r e alluded 

 represent, in an exceedingly condensed 

 form, the result of extensive thought 

 and reading. A year or two ago 

 Mr. Darwin lent the present writer 

 the original drafts of these essays, 

 together with all the notes and mem- 

 oranda which he had collected on 

 psychological subjects during the pre- 

 vious forty years, and so we can testi- 

 fy that any one who reads these MSS. 

 is more likely to be surprised at the 

 •amount of labor which they indicate 

 than at the effect which has been 



produced by the compressed publica- 

 tion of its results. What strikes- 

 one most in reading the MSS. is that 

 which also strikes one most in read- 

 ing the published resume that has 

 grown out of them — namely, the- 

 honest adherence throughout to the 

 strictly scientific, or, as the followers 

 of Comte would say, positive method 

 of seeking and interpreting facts; 

 speculation, hypothesis, and straw- 

 splitting are everywhere, not so much 

 intentionally avoided, as alien to the^ 

 whole conception of the manner in 

 which the sundry problems are to be 

 attacked We all know that this con- 

 ception has not met with universal ap- 

 proval — that more than one writer, 

 adhering to the traditional methods 

 of psychological inquiry, has express- 

 ly joined issue upon it. But although, 

 it is an easy matter for a technical 

 psychologist to point to an absence 

 of technical thought, and so of a rec- 

 ognition of technical principles, in 

 these parts of Mr. Darwin's writings,, 

 we are persuaded that the expose only- 

 serves to reveal a beam in the eye of 

 the technical psychologist which 

 prevents him from seeing clearly how 

 to remove the mote from Mr. Dab- 

 win's. In other words, although it 

 is true that Mr. Darwin does not rec- 

 ognize the niceties of distinction 

 which seem so important to what we 

 may term the professional mind, it 

 is no less true that in the cases to 

 which we have alluded, the profession- 

 al mind has failed in its duty of fill- 

 ing up for itself the technical lacunae, 

 in Mr. Darwin's expositions. Such 

 lacunae no doubt occur, but they never 

 really vitiate the integrity of the con- 

 clusions ; and a trained psycholo- 

 gist would best fulfill his function 

 as an under-builder, by supplying here 

 and there the stones which the hand 

 of the master has neglected to put in. 

 To ourselves it always seems one of 

 the most wonderful of the many 

 wonderful aspects of Mr. Darwin's 

 varied work, that by the sheer force 

 of some exalted kind of common sense, 

 unassisted by any special acquaintance 

 with psychological method, he should 



