488 Editors' Table. [June, 



should take among those philosophers and students who have 

 done it greatest honor. The feeling thus expressed, that Darwin 

 should rank with Newton, Faraday, and other scientific leaders, 

 is shared by the best judges of the work he has done in remodel- 

 ling scientific thought, and in originating and completing the rev- 

 olution in biological methods, which has been effected within the 

 last quarter of a century. 



As a physical geographer, as a systematic zoologist, and as an 

 anatomist, as well as palaeontologist, whatever Darwin accom- 

 plished was of a high order. But it was not in these departments 

 of science, that he excelled. He was most eminent and 

 original in observing the habits of plants and animals, their rela- 

 tions to each other and to their surroundings ; he studied the 



he studied hybridity, and especially the effects of heredity and 

 growth force. He did little work in comparative anatomy, and 

 almost nothing in embryology, but the influence his ideas exerted 

 upon these difficult fields of research, have stimulated the devel- 

 opment of these sciences to a wonderful and unprecedented 



Darwin pursued the objective or inductive method. He ap- 

 proached the subject of evolution, rather from the biological 

 point of view, from a study of the living organism, than from 

 the embryological and palaeontological side. He was cautious 

 in observing, collating, and arranging his facts, which were proved 

 by experiment and tested again and again. With a broad founda- 

 tion of facts, he could afford to make brilliant deductions and 

 bold speculations. Some phases of his theory of natural selec- 

 tions may be unproven hypotheses, and his own theory may be 

 emended and greatly extended, but the world remembers New- 

 ton's theory of gravitation and forgets his crude theory of light. 

 Darwin showed admirable caution, self-criticism, candor, and an 

 absence of the controversial spirit. He gave credit to those 

 to whom it was due, and the charge of appropriating the work of 

 others has never been breathed in connection with his name. 



Moreover, his clear, simple, lucid style, his powers of exposi- 

 tion and rapid generalization, caused his books to be read by the 

 layman as well as by the scientist. His works and views never 

 needed an expounder. 



Under all these conditions, Darwin was his own intellectual ex- 

 ecutor. He gave his theory to the world, and lived to see it be- 

 come the common intellectual wealth of his own age. Within 

 twenty-two years after the appearance of the " Origin of Species 

 his opinions gained the mastery of the philosophic and scientific 

 field of thought. 



This was mainly the result of his methods, the Baconian or in- 

 ductive. The a priori, purely metaphysical or philosophical 

 methods of Herbert Spencer are not convincing to the most ot 



