Take first the external human interests, other than purely social. In the larger movements of history Darwin seems not to have been particularly well versed or to have concerned himself very much with them. Of course, in relying upon his volumes of published letters as evidence, we must remember that those volumes were naturally edited with a view in the main to scientific pursuits, and therefore it is to be expected that other interests should figure less conspicuously. Still the testimony, both positive and negative, to the unimportance of those interests is very decided. As to this matter of history, Darwin himself tells us that he read the historians in his youth. He even insists that when he had lost æsthetic pleasures, ‘books on history, biographies, and travels ... and essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did.’[312] Of his earlier life he records that ‘I used to sit for hours reading the historical plays of Shakespeare, generally in an old window in the thick walls of the school.’[313] Perhaps on this Shakespearean basis, he retains, with many other English conventions, that of reverence for rank, though no more natural democrat ever lived, and he makes gentle fun of himself for his snobbishness: ‘I have the true English reverence for rank, and therefore liked to hear about the Princess Royal.’[314] Nevertheless, in his letters and in his books, you get the sense that the great currents of development in Europe and in the world were not familiar to his thought. With the unfailing candor, he admits this: ‘I believe your criticism is quite just about my deficient historic spirit, for I am aware of my ignorance in this line.’[315] And an acute and sympathetic analyst of his work, points out that it suffered to some extent from the deficiency. The tendency to extend evolutionary analogies from the individual to society was partly Darwin’s fault, says this critic, because of his ‘embarking upon the discussion of social and moral matters, in “The Descent of Man”; matters concerning which he was little better informed than any other non-specialist.’[316] In contemporary politics it was not to be expected that Darwin should have much immediate concern. One can hardly imagine a man less likely to choose an active political career, or on the whole less adapted to it, though the tact which enabled him to deal successfully with his fellow-scientists would no doubt have been helpful in more practical spheres. There are occasional glimpses of his taking some part in local interests, and for a time at any rate he attended to the judicial duties which we so generally associate with the English country squire: ‘I attended the Bench on Monday, and was detained in adjudicating some troublesome cases one and one half hours longer than usual, and came home utterly knocked up, and cannot rally.’[317]