coin. It is now an almost organic part of all our thinking. (6) He applied the evolution idea various sets of facts, such as the expression of the emotions and the development of instincts, and showed what a powerful intellectual organon it is. (c) Along with Wallace, he formulated and developed the particular theory of Natural Selection as a directive factor in the evolution process. (d) Apart from all theory, he disclosed a view of nature as a vast system of complex inter-relations —a web of life in which part is bound to part by vital bonds of adaptation and interdependence.

More personally it may be noted that after Darwin went to Down he lived, while he was revolutionising biology, the quiet life of a country gentleman, interested in his garden and greenhouse, in his pigeons and poultry. Happy in his family life, rich in his friends, unworried by pecuniary cares, master of his own time, undisturbed by interviewers, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to investigation and thought, hampered only by persistent ill-health. While he was doubtless wrong in explaining his success by saying, 'It's dogged that does it,' it was his pertinacious but never toilsome industry that enabled his fine brain to do so much as it did. With the aid of his fascinating Life and Letters, we can see him, as in a Holbein picture, with all the paraphernalia of his daily pursuits round about him-his high chair, his orderly shelves, his torn-up reference books and periodicals, his portfolios of notes, his window-sill laboratory, his yellow-back novels! There was seldom a great life so devoid of littleness, seldom a record of thought so free from extravagance. According to his own account of his intellectual qualities in his charming autobiography, he had 'no great quickness of apprehension or wit,' 'a very limited power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought,' ‘a memory extensive yet hazy,' 'a fair share of invention, and of common-sense or judgment,' an unusual power in 'noticing things which easily escape attention, and in observing them carefully,' a great industry, 'the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed-that is, to group all facts under some general laws.' All this is, of course, too splendidly modest; but there is, we think, more truth in it than in some of the eulogies which make him out to have been an extraordinary genius. Apart from an insight which cannot be explained, his chief intellectual qualities were simply those characteristic of the scientific mood at its best-a passion and reverence for facts, an innate repugnance to obscurity and verbalism, a highly developed cautiousness and honesty in coming to conclusions, and a marvellous sense of the inter-relations of things. It is with the utmost reverence that we would note that Darwin, like many other great men of science, had very little 'philosophical sense.' He was neither aware of nor interested in the philosophical, as distinguished from the scientific, point of view. His

kindliness, modesty, magnanimity, and devotion. to truth made him, as Poulton says, 'so beloved by his circle of intimate friends that, through their contagious enthusiasm, and through the glimpses of his nature revealed in his writings, he was in all likelihood more greatly loved than any other man of his time by those who knew him not.'

In regard to the literary qualities of Darwin's voluminous writings, there is considerable discrepancy of opinion among those competent to judge. There are some who regard the Origin of Species and the Descent of Man as fine illustrations of English expository prose, but it seems probable that their opinion has been in some measure favourably biassed by their keen intellectual delight in following the resistless argument. There are others who find the pages heavy and the periods inelegant, but it seems probable that their lack of appreciation is partly due to an absence of organic interest in the subject-matter, and to the fatigue which the perusal of scientific discourse inevitably involves for those unfamiliar with the objective facts of nature. It must, we think, be admitted that Darwin was so preoccupied with 'getting at the truth' that he thought little, if at all, about what we call artistic presentation. He was no stylist or rhetorician; he had very little of Huxley's gift of telling phrase or happy epigram, very little of Haeckel's power of expressing himself in picturesque and eloquently moving periods. He often doubles back to answer a possible objection, and in his honesty mars his own sequence; he often overloads a sentence with a mass of detailed proof; he often introduces saving clauses which inhibit immediate conviction. But these are the defects of his great qualities; he was working with big issues; he was dominated by the scientific mood; he did not seek to make points, but to present facts that made his points secure. His is the straightforward, direct, entirely unemotional style of an advocate who has so much that is new and vital to say, that he cares little about details of elegance or immediate effectiveness. He thought 'long and intently about every sentence ;' he worked most methodically from plan to sketch, from sketch to summary, from summary to the full text; and if the result did not always reward his pains, it is in any case immortal. 'There seems,' he says, 'to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me to put at first my statement or proposition in a wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately.' But most of us would prefer Darwin's 'scribbling' to any amount of fine writing: it is instinct with veracity.

Considering the purpose of this article, we have thought it well to refer briefly to one of Darwin's

confessions, of which, perhaps, too much has been made by some who have sought to draw moral lessons from his life. Up to the age of thirty or more, Darwin found great pleasure in poetry, pictures, and music. During his last twenty or thirty years he lost these æsthetic tastes; he could not endure to read a line of poetry, even Shakespeare's; music generally set him thinking too energetically on his work; fine scenery did not cause him the exquisite delight which it formerly did. Novels, on the other hand, even if only moderately good, were 'a wonderful relief and pleasure' to him; and history, biography, travels, and essays on all sorts of subjects interested him as much as ever they did. In his autobiography he discusses the 'atrophy' of his higher æsthetic tastes, and laments the loss of happiness involved and the possible injurious effects. It was doubtless too severe a self-analysis to say, 'My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts,' but it may be allowed that the scientific mood became more and more dominant in his life. It should be remembered, however, that Darwin's working-day, shortened by his ill-health, was methodically filled up so as to secure the maximum output; and, as it seems to us, what he severely called 'atrophy' should be more generously regarded as the natural result of extreme preoccupation with great issues.

The mass of literature which may be called Darwinian is immense and continually increasing. As Asa Gray said: 'Dante literature and Shakespeare literature have been the growth of centuries, but Darwinism filled teeming catalogues during the lifetime of the author.' Part of this literature consists of ill-judged criticisms on the part of men who did not understand the subject, or were prejudiced by emotional and other vested interests; this has now little more than historical interest, illustrating the difficulty many men find in changing their point of view; its output has rapidly decreased since the coming of age of the Origin of Species in the middle of the eighties. A second portion of the Darwinian literature consists of careful and unprejudiced criticisms which have been of much service in the development of the theory of evolution. To these Darwin paid courteous and scrupulous attention, and the minor changes in successive editions of his chief works are of much interest in this connection. Thirdly, there are those works-e.g. of Herbert Spencer and August Weismann-which have added constructively to the Darwinian edifice. It would be interesting to show that evolutionist thought has had a marked influence on general literature; but this is implied

in the fact that Darwin and his fellow-workers were instrumental in changing man's whole intellectual outlook. On the other hand, it is a matter for regret that there have been so few modern attempts to give to the evolutionist's vision of the drama of life that poetic expression which Goethe proved to be so splendidly possible.

The Origin of Species.

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

(Conclusion of Origin of Species.) The Tree of Life.

The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during former years may represent the long succession of extinct species. . . . As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its everbranching and beautiful ramifications.

(Conclusion of Chap. IV. of Origin of Species, 6th ed., pp. 104, 105.)

Natural Selection.

If under changing conditions of life organic beings present individual differences in almost every part of their structure, and this cannot be disputed; if there be, owing to their geometrical rate of increase, a severe struggle for life at some age, season, or year, and this certainly cannot be disputed; then, considering the infinite complexity of the relations of all organic beings to each other and to their conditions of life, causing an infinite diversity in structure, constitution, and habits, to be advantageous to them, it would be a most extraordinary fact if no variations had ever occurred useful to each being's own welfare, in the same manner as so many variations have occurred useful to man. But if variations useful to any organic being ever do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterised will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance, these will tend to produce offspring similarly characterised. This principle of preservation, or the survival of the fittest, I have called Natural Selection.

(Summary Chap. IV. of Origin of Species, 6th ed., pp. 102, 103.)

The Struggle for Existence. Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult-at least I have found it so-than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood. We behold the face of nature bright with gladness, we often see superabundance of food; we do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life; or we forget how largely these songsters, or their eggs, or their nestlings, are destroyed by birds and beasts of prey; we do not always bear in mind that, though food may be now superabundant, it is not so at all seasons of each recurring year. I should premise

that I use this term [Struggle for Existence] in a large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny. . . . When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.

(Origin of Species, pp. 49, 50, 61.)

Malthus and Darwinism.

In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus On Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in thirty-five pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of two hundred and thirty pages, which I had fairly copied out and still possess. (Life and Letters, vol. i.)

The 'Beagle' Voyage. When I visited, during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, the Galapagos Archipelago, situated in the Pacific Ocean about five hundred miles from the shore of South America, I found myself surrounded by peculiar species of birds, reptiles, and plants, existing nowhere else in the world. Yet they nearly all bore an American stamp. In the song of the mocking-thrush, in the harsh cry of the carrion-hawk, in the great candlestick-like opuntias, I clearly perceived the neighbourhood of America, though the islands were separated by so many miles of ocean from the mainland, and differed much from it in their geological constitution and climate. Still more surprising was the fact that most of the inhabitants of each separate island in this small archipelago were specifically different, though most closely related to each other. The archipelago, with its innumerable craters and bare

streams of lava, appeared to be of recent origin, and thus I fancied myself brought near to the very act of creation. I often asked myself how these many peculiar animals and plants had been produced: the simplest answer seemed to be that the inhabitants of the several islands had descended from each other, undergoing modification in the course of their descent; and that all the inhabitants of the archipelago had descended from those of the nearest land, namely America, whence colonists would naturally have been derived. But it long remained to me an inexplicable problem how the necessary degree of modification could have been effected, and it would have thus remained for ever had I not studied domestic productions, and thus acquired a just idea of the power of Selection. As soon as I had fully realised this idea,

I saw, on reading Malthus On Population, that Natural Selection was the inevitable result of the rapid increase of all organic beings; for I was prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence by having long studied the habits of animals.

(Introduction to Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication.)

Adaptations and Inter-Relations.

We see on every side of us innumerable adaptations and contrivances, which have justly excited in the mind of every observer the highest admiration. There is, for instance, a fly (Cecidomyia) which deposits its eggs within the stamens of a Scrophularia, and secretes a poison that produces a gall, on which the larva feeds; but there is another insect (Misocampus) which deposits its eggs within the body of the larva within the gall, and is thus nourished by its living prey; so that here a hymenopterous insect depends on a dipterous insect, and this depends on its power of producing a monstrous growth in a particular organ of a particular plant. So it is, in a more or less plainly marked manner, in thousands and tens of thousands of cases, with the lowest as well as the highest productions of nature.

(Introduction to Variation of Animals and Plants.)

Cats and Clover.

I find from experiments that humble-bees are almost indispensable to the fertilisation of the heartsease (Viola tricolor), for other bees do not visit this flower. I have also found that the visits of bees are necessary for the fertilisation of some kinds of clover: for instance, twenty heads of Dutch clover (Trifolium repens) yielded 2290 seeds, but twenty other heads protected from bees produced not one. Again, one hundred heads of red clover (T. pratense) produced 2700 seeds, but the same number of protected heads produced not a single seed. Humblebees alone visit red clover, as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence we may infer as highly probable that, if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover The would become very rare or wholly disappear. number of humble-bees in any district depends in great measure on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; . . . now the number of mice is largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats. . . . Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district.

(Origin of Species, pp. 57, 58.)

Personal.

Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have amounted to, has been determined, as far as I can judge, by complex and diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most important have been the love of science, unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject, industry in observing and collecting facts, and a fair share of invention as well as of common-sense. With such moderate abilities as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific men on some important points.

The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by his son, Mr Francis Darwin, appeared in three volumes in 1887; More Letters, two volumes edited by Mr Darwin and Mr A. C. Seward, followed in 1903. See the obituary notices by Huxley in Nature (April 1888), Proc. Royal Soc. (1888), and the Collected Essays, vol. ii.; also, Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection, by E. B. Poulton (1896), and the short Lives by Grant Allen (1885), G. T. Bettany (1887), and C. F. Holder (1891). J. ARTHUR THOMSON.

He

Alexander William Kinglake (1809-91), born at Wilton House near Taunton, from Eton passed in 1828 to Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1837, acquired a considerable Chancery practice, and retired in 1856 to devote himself to literature and politics. A tour about 1835 had already given birth to Eōthen (1844), one of the most brilliant and popular books of Eastern travel. Returned for Bridgwater as a Liberal in 1857, he took a prominent part against Lord Palmerston's Conspiracy Bill, and denounced the French annexation of Savoy. was with the French army in Algiers in 1845, and in the Crimea, where he was present at the battle of the Alma, and made the intimate acquaintance of Lord Raglan. It was at Lady Raglan's request that he undertook his Invasion of the Crimea: its Origin, and its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan (8 vols. 1863-87), largely based upon Lord Raglan's papers. The work has been blamed as prejudiced; but on the literary side it is one of the outstanding historical works of the century. No doubt, as Lord Raglan's friend, he did perhaps more than justice to the English commander's merits, and his abhorrence of the character and career of Napoleon III. made him a somewhat unfair judge of the Emperor's policy. It is generally felt that the history is too long, but the picturesque details give it all the vivacity of the best special correspondent's daily reports. The criticism of Napoleon was, indeed, so severe that the circulation of the history was prohibited in France during the Empire. Kinglake examined into all the episodes of the war with

enormous and painstaking particularity; and the too great detail of this record has unquestionably injured the permanent popularity its clear and lively narrative and its polished and admirable style would otherwise have secured. In 1868 Kinglake was again returned for Bridgwater, but was unseated on petition. The borough was shown to be corrupt, but Kinglake was free from all suspicion of complicity in the irregular methods. employed at the election.

At his death Kinglake was remembered less as the author of the bulky, elaborate, exhaustive story of the Crimean war than as the self-centred, vivacious, humorous, luxurious hero of Eōthen, a comparatively slight volume which defies the ordinary canons of travel-book making, and owes its charm solely to the author's constantly and fully revealed personality. The most objective part is the circumstantial account of the traveller's reception by Lady Hester Stanhope, and the conversation he held with that uncanny recluse of the Lebanon elsewhere you have mainly sensations, impressions, reflections-and in Palestine rarely of the deepest. Tiberias suggests only a disquisition on the fleas of all countries; Cairo only the aspects of a plague-stricken town. It is not a Sentimental Journey, indeed, but an impressionist one, with some actual objective experiences, certainly, but almost no geographical, historical, or political facts, and nothing whatever of the guidebook, even of the glorified guide-book, about it. See the Memoir by Innes Shand prefixed to a new edition of Eōthen (1896).

With an Osmanli Pasha.

The truth is, that most of the men in authority have risen from their humble stations by the arts of the courtier, and they preserve in their high estate those gentle powers of fascination to which they owe their success. Yet unless you can contrive to learn a little of the language, you will be rather bored by your visits of ceremony; the intervention of the interpreter, or Dragoman, as he is called, is fatal to the spirit of conversation. I think I should mislead you if I were to attempt to give the substance of any particular conversation with Orientals. A traveller may write and say that 'the Pasha of So-and-So was particularly interested in the vast progress which has been made in the application of steam, and appeared to understand the structure of our machinery; that he remarked upon the gigantic results of our manufacturing industry, showed that he possessed considerable knowledge of our Indian affairs, and of the constitution of the Company, and expressed a lively admiration of the many sterling qualities for which the people of England are distinguished.' But the heap of commonplaces thus quietly attributed to the Pasha will have been founded perhaps on some such talking as this:

Pasha. The Englishman is welcome; most blessed among hours is this, the hour of his coming.

Dragoman (to the Traveller). The Pasha pays you his compliments.

Traveller. Give him my best compliments in return, and say I'm delighted to have the honour of seeing him.

Dragoman (to the Pasha). His Lordship, this Englishman, Lord of London, Scorner of Ireland, Suppressor of France, has quitted his governments, and left his enemies to breathe for a moment, and has crossed the broad waters in strict disguise, with a small but eternally faithful retinue of followers, in order that he might look upon the bright countenance of the Pasha among Pashas-the Pasha of the everlasting Pashalik of Karagholookoldour.

Traveller (to his Dragoman). What on earth have you been saying about London? The Pasha will be taking me for a mere cockney. Have not I told you always to say that I am from a branch of the family of Mudcombe Park, and that I am to be a magistrate for the county of Bedfordshire, only I've not qualified, and that I should have been a Deputy-Lieutenant, if it had not been for the extraordinary conduct of Lord Mountpromise, and that I was a candidate for Goldborough at the last election, and that I should have won easy, if my committee had not been bought? I wish to heaven that if you do say anything about me, you'd tell the simple truth. Dragoman [is silent].

Pasha. What says the friendly Lord of London? Is there aught that I can grant him within the pashalik of Karagholookoldour?

Dragoman (growing sulky and literal). This friendly Englishman-this branch of Mudcombe-this head-purveyor of Goldborough-this possible policeman of Bedfordshire is recounting his achievements, and the number of his titles.

Pasha. The end of his honours is more distant than the ends of the Earth, and the catalogue of his glorious deeds is brighter than the firmament of Heaven!

Dragoman (to the Traveller). The Pasha congratulates your Excellency.

Traveller. About Goldborough? The deuce he does! -but I want to get at his views in relation to the present state of the Ottoman Empire; tell him the Houses of Parliament have met, and that there has been a Speech from the throne, pledging England to preserve the integrity of the Sultan's dominions.

Dragoman (to the Pasha). This branch of Mudcombe, this possible policeman of Bedfordshire, informs your Highness that in England the talking houses have met, and that the integrity of the Sultan's dominions has been assured for ever and ever, by a speech from the velvet chair.

Pasha. Wonderful chair! Wonderful houses !-whirr ! whirr all by wheels !-whiz! whiz! all by steam!wonderful chair! wonderful houses! wonderful people! -whirr! whirr! all by wheels!-whiz! whiz! all by steam!

Taveller (to the Dragoman). What does the Pasha mean by that whizzing? He does not mean to say, does he, that our Government will ever abandon their pledges to the Sultan?

Dragoman. No, your Excellency; but he says the English talk by wheels and by steam.

Traveller. That's an exaggeration; but say.. Pasha (after having received the communication of the Dragoman). The ships of the English swarm like flies; their printed calicoes cover the whole earth, and by the side of their swords the blades of Damascus are blades of grass. All India is but an item in the Ledgerbooks of the Merchants, whose lumber-rooms are filled with ancient thrones !-whirr! whirr! all by wheels !— whiz! whiz! all by steam!

Dragoman. The Pasha compliments the cutlery of England, and also the East India Company.

Traveller. The Pasha's right about the cutlery (I tried my scimitar with the common officers' swords belonging to our fellows at Malta, and they cut it like the leaf of a Novel). Well (to the Dragoman), tell the Pasha I am exceedingly gratified to find that he entertains such a high opinion of our manufacturing energy, but I should like him to know, though, that we have got something in England besides that. These foreigners are always fancying that we have nothing but ships, and railways, and East India Companies; do just tell the Pasha that our rural districts deserve his attention, and that even within the last two hundred years there has been an evident improvement in the culture of the turnip, and if he does not take any interest about that, at all events you can explain that we have our virtues in the country-that the British yeoman is still, thank God! the British yoeman :-Oh! and by-the-by, whilst you are about it, you may as well say that we are a truth-telling people, and, like the Osmanlees, are faithful in the performance of our promises.

Pasha (after hearing the Dragoman). It is true, it is true:-through all Feringhistan the English are foremost, and best; for the Russians are drilled swine, and the Germans are sleeping babes, and the Italians are the servants of Songs, and the French are the sons of Newspapers, and the Greeks they are weavers of lies, but the English and the Osmanlees are brothers together in righteousness; for the Osmanlees believe in one only God, and cleave to the Koran, and destroy idols; so do the English worship one God, and abominate graven images, and tell the truth, and believe in a book, and though they drink the juice of the grape, yet to say that they worship their prophet as God, or to say that they are eaters of pork, these are lies-lies born of Greeks, and nursed by Jews!

Dragoman. The Pasha compliments the English.

Traveller (rising). Well, I've had enough of this. Tell the Pasha I am greatly obliged to him for his hospitality, and still more for his kindness in furnishing me with horses, and say that now I must be off.

Pasha (after hearing the Dragoman, and standing up on his Divan). Proud are the sires, and blessed are the dams of the horses that shall carry his Excellency to the end of his prosperous journey.-May the saddle beneath him glide down to the gates of the happy city, like a boat swimming on the third river of Paradise.-May he sleep the sleep of a child, when his friends are around him, and the while that his enemies are abroad, may his eyes flame red through the darkness-more red than the eyes of ten tigers !-farewell!

Dragoman. The Pasha wishes your Excellency a pleasant journey.