Life of Charles DarwinBettany, G. T. (George Thomas)
Science
Life of Charles Darwin
Bettany, G. T. (George Thomas)
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882
It should be added that he was greatly averse to every form of militant
anti-religious controversy, and always deprecated it. He would have been
the last to desire that his words should be quoted as of scientific
authority, or as being more than the results of his own thought on
questions which were not the subject of his life study. Let those who
think that his having expressed these views is a regrettable blow to
orthodox Christianity, set against it the enormous service Darwin did to
reasonable natural theology by giving an intelligible key to the
explanation of the universe. And let all men remember that genuine
honesty such as Darwin's cannot possibly hinder the interests or the
spread of truth. His declaration that "man can do his duty," implies his
conviction that man may know what his duty is; and very many noble
spirits besides Darwin have not found it possible to advance with
certainty beyond this point.
As to Darwin's place in literature, that is due supereminently to his
thoughts. In his expression of them he had the saving quality of
directness, and usually wrote with simplicity. Incisive he was not
ordinarily; caution of his type harmonises ill with incisiveness. But
what he lost thereby he gained in solidity and in permanence. Sometimes,
as we have pointed out, his imagination carried him beyond his usual
sober vein, and then he showed himself aglow with feeling or with
sympathetic perception.
But when we speak of his imagination we pass at once to the other side
of his mind--if indeed any such patient inquiry as his could have been
maintained except for the imaginative side of him. This lit up his path,
buoyed him in difficulties and failures, suggested new expedients,
experiments, and combinations. The use of imagination in science has
never been more aptly illustrated nor more beneficial than in his case.
Darwin, more than any other man perhaps, showed the value, if not the
essentiality, of "working hypotheses"; and if any man now wants to
progress in biology, he will be foolish if he does not seek such and use
them freely, and abandon them readily if disproved.
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