[95] Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. x. (1879-80) p. 518.
[96] Report Brit. Assoc., 1882, p. 95.
[97] The hope here expressed has so far been realised by the appointment of a Committee of the Geological Congress at Paris in 1900 and the renewal and extension of this Committee at the following Meeting held in Vienna in 1903. The subjects of Earthquakes, Movements of elevation or depression in mountain chains and measurements of the value of Gravity were especially proposed for investigation. The recommendations of the Committee were approved by the International Association of Academies in London in the summer of 1904 and steps were then taken in the direction of international co-operation in each of the subjects suggested. Note added, October, 1904.
VII
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin[98]
By the universal consent of mankind, the name of Charles Darwin was placed, even during his lifetime, among those of the few great leaders who stand forth for all time as the creative spirits that have founded and legislated for the realm of Science. It is too soon to estimate with precision the full value and effect of his work. The din of controversy that rose around him has hardly yet died down, and the influence of the doctrines he propounded is extending into so many remote departments of human inquiry, that a generation or two may require to pass away before his true place in the history of thought can be definitely fixed. But the judgment of his contemporaries as to his proud pre-eminence is not likely ever to be called in question. He is enrolled among the Dii Majorum Gentium, and there he will remain to the end of the ages. When he was laid beside the illustrious dead in Westminster Abbey, there arose far and wide a lamentation as of personal bereavement. Thousands of mourners who knew only his writings, and judged of the gentleness and courtesy of his nature from these and from such hearsay reports as passed outwards from the privacy of his country home, grieved as for the loss of a dear friend. It is remarkable that probably no scientific man of his day was personally less familiar to the mass of his fellow-countrymen. He seemed to shun all the usual modes of contact with them. His weak health, domestic habits, and absorbing work kept him in the seclusion of his own quiet household. In later years his face was seldom to be seen at the meetings of scientific societies, or at those gatherings where the discoveries of science are expounded to more popular audiences. He shrank from public controversy, although no man was ever more vigorously attacked and more completely misrepresented. Nevertheless, when he died, the affectionate regret that followed him to the grave came not alone from his own personal friends, but from thousands of sympathetic mourners in all parts of the world, who had never known or seen him. Men had ample material for judging of his work, and in the end had given their judgment with general acclaim. Of the man himself, however, they could know but little, yet enough of his character shone forth in his work to indicate its tenderness and goodness. Men instinctively felt him to be in every way one of the great ones of the earth, whose removal from the living world leaves mankind poorer in moral worth as well as in intellect. So widespread has been this conviction, that the story of his life has been eagerly longed for. It might contain no eventful incidents, but it would reveal the man as he was, and show the method of his working and the secret of his greatness.
At last, five years and a half after his death, the long expected Memoir has made its appearance. The task of preparing it was undertaken by his son, Mr. Francis Darwin, who, having for the last eight years of his father's life acted as his assistant, was specially qualified to put the world in possession of a true picture of the inner life of the great naturalist. Most biographies are too long, but, in the present case, the three goodly volumes will be found to contain not a page too much. The narrative is absorbingly interesting from first to last. The editor, with excellent judgment, allows Darwin himself, as far as possible, to tell his own story in a series of delightful letters, which bring us into the very presence of the earnest student and enthusiastic explorer of Nature.