210 
Charles Darwin . 
[April, 
would have been unsurpassed in that speciality, and as proof 
that he was not the amateur which certain French official 
savans rashly pronounced him. But Mr. Romanes adds that 
it would have been a calamity in the history of our race if 
Charles Darwin had been tempted to become a comparative 
anatomist. Such work he did well to leave to men who, 
though great, are still far his inferiors. 
Mr. Romanes sums up this part of the subject by quoting 
the conclusion of the “ Origin of Species,” which does not 
seem, to him, a subterfuge. 
The last section of the little work, from the same pen, 
views Darwin as a psychologist. In this department his 
diredt contributions are limited to one chapter in the “ Origin 
of Species,” three chapters in the “ Descent of Man,” and 
a short paper on the development of infantile intelligence. 
Moreover, he was indifferent to the verbal subtleties of the 
official psychologists who approach this subjedt from a meta- 
physical side. Hence by them he was regarded at first as a 
presumptuous outsider. Nevertheless he shook their science 
to its base, and left them humbler, and we would fain hope 
wiser, men. 
In drawing to a close Mr. Romanes expresses a “ regret 
that the ill health which led to his seclusion prevented the 
extraordinary beauty of his charadter from being more gene- 
rally known by personal intercourse.” We regret that he 
was, ever since his voyage in the Beagle, a sufferer. At the 
same time we cannot help suspending that these very suffer- 
ings and the seclusion which they occasioned were not un- 
mixed evils. A wider range of personal acquaintance might 
have distradted him from his grand life-task, and perhaps 
have even led him to waste his time and his energies in work 
for which inferior minds are quite competent. 
What is wanting in the work before us is a general esti- 
mate of Darwin’s influence, not in this or the other branch 
of Science, but upon the whole horizon of human thought. 
This task, perhaps, may advantageously be postponed till 
the seeds sown by him and his disciples shall have sprung 
up and borne fruit. 
