322 Charles Darwin: a Farewell Offering. [June, 
tific demonstration,* Darwinism became a power which 
profoundly modified the direction and line of modern 
thought. In every department of knowledge its influence is 
manifest. 
The moral is clear, the contrast significant. Instead of 
docilely surrendering himself, like Darwin, to the guidance 
of truth, Carlyle erected his own subjective standard in the 
fore front of the battle, and expected truth to follow his lead. 
In the pre-scientific “ ages of Faith,” the use of such a 
method was, if not a positive virtue, at least a venial sin ; 
but at the present day it is an aCtual crime against Human 
Nature, and involves a corresponding Nemesis. Carlyle 
despised the spirit of the age ; but the age had its revenge, 
and he his reward. Like the forgotten theories of Evolution, 
his anachronisms only represent one phase of a primaeval, 
but quite obsolete, ideal, to which they fail to impart any fresh 
vitality. They, too, are without root, therefore without fruit. 
II. CHARLES DARWIN: A FAREWELL 
OFFERING. 
By An Old Disciple of Lorentz Oken. 
HE gods leave us ! ” We sit as if stunned by a 
heavy and unexpected blow, and time must pass 
before we fully realise what we and the world at 
large have lost on the 19th of April. We can scarcely be- 
lieve that we shall never more open a new book from his 
pen, throwing a clear and startling light upon some hitherto 
unsolved question, or drawing important conclusions from 
facts heretofore ignored or despised. Many a student, many 
an explorer in English museums, in German laboratories, in 
Brazilian forests, or on Malayan coasts, when coming upon 
some suggestive phenomenon, will forget for the moment 
what has happened, and say to himself “ I must let Darwin 
know this ! ” 
We. were all aware that Darwin was well advanced in 
years, and that his health was far from robust. But so 
necessary had he become as a leader to all earnest cultivators 
* Not by Darwin alone, but also by Lyell, Haeckel, Wallace, &c. The first- 
named, who proved the unhistorical character of Genesis, sleeps in Westminster 
Abbey ; of the second — pronounced Materialist though he be — Darwin has 
expressed the most decided approbation. 
