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The Naturalist. 



at tlie time are said by Professor Asa Gray to testify that lie viewed 

 the public discussion witb a sense of amazed wonder at an unexpected 

 notoriety. Maintaining through it all the kindliness, unaffectedness, 

 and simple-heartedness which made him one of the most loveable of 

 men, it is said that whenever he came into correspondence or contact 

 with any opponent, he never failed to make a friend of him. 



Looking at Charles Darwin simply as a man, how many times in 

 England, in Europe, in America, can you match him ? Simple- 

 hearted as a child, singularly modest and unassuming, a man who 

 may be taken as a model in his personal character; in his home 

 life, in his life as a citizen, — a man who has made the single-hearted 

 and clear-eyed pursuit of truth the one work of his life, and who has 

 shown a singularly pure and unbiassed and unpartisan devotion to 

 that truth. He did not seek to build up his own ideas or to glorify 

 himself, but he looked calmly and dispassionately at the subjects with 

 which he dealt, searching simply to find out the truth, and setting 

 down the results in direct and lucid terms. I wish that those who 

 claim to be holier than he, could really establish their right to stand 

 on a level with him in this marvellous characteristic of the earnest, 

 pure-minded seeker after truth. Even they must admit it is well that 

 the change of lease in philosophical natural history which had to be 

 made in their generation should have been dominated — though it has 

 not been wholly controlled — by a spirit so truthful and single, and a 

 judgment so calm and well-balanced. 



Let me give an illustration of the extent to which he carried this. 

 The " Origin of Species," his great epoch-making book, contains in 

 itself the hint — more than the hint, the clear statement — of every 

 single criticism that has ever been made on it. He overlooked, he 

 covered up, none of the difficulties that stood against his theory. He 

 put the weapons into the very hands of his enemies, and said, " See, 

 here is this theory ; such things make for it, such things make 

 against it. Destroy it if you can." And this he said in no defiant 

 tone, but only as one who should say, "If this be not a part of the 

 eternal truth, it ought to be destroyed; and, though my life-work be^, 

 lost as the result, yet I will help you in its destruction." How many 

 men advocating moral, religious, sociological, political theories of any 

 kind have ever been so utterly candid and fair as this ? So much 

 simply to indicate the kind of man he was. 



Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, in February, 1809, and 

 when we look at his ancestry, and see the stock from which he 



