Mere observation of the natural world, varied, fascinating, inexhaustible as it is, affords only the material for science. Observed facts must be built up, woven together, ordered, arranged, systematized into conclusions and theories by reflection and reason, if they are to have full bearing on life and the universe. Knowledge is the accumulation of facts. Wisdom is the establishment of relations. And just because the latter process is delicate and perilous, it is all the more delightful. The lofty scorn of the true philosopher for mere perception is well shown in Royer Collard’s remark: ‘There is nothing so despicable as a fact.’ Which does not prevent philosophers or any one else from making facts the essential basis of all discussion of relations. Darwin’s own comments on the general connection between the two are always interesting: ‘I have an old belief that a good observer really means a good theorist,’[432] and again: ‘About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorize; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colors. How odd it is that any one should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service.’[433]
It is supposed to be one of the chief functions of education to develop this faculty of relating facts to each other and to train and strengthen the reasoning powers. Darwin did not feel that education did much for him in this line, at any rate in the scientific directions which were of especial interest to him. He believed that his academic discipline was largely wasted. Making Latin verses did not appeal. More general lines of current information attracted him very little, and he seemed at times oddly ignorant of what the ordinary educated man is expected to know. Thus his son records that he once asked Hooker where ‘this place Wien is where they publish so many books.’[434] He read vastly in all that concerned his own work, but that very fact prevented his keeping up with daily interests that were remote from it. His own comment on his university experience is bitter: ‘During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school.’[435] And he believed that he had learned everything that to him was worth learning pretty much by his own efforts: ‘I consider that all I have learnt of any value has been self-taught.’[436]
DOWN HOUSE FROM THE GARDEN
With this sort of discipline behind him, it is of great interest to examine his general attitude toward the connection of reasoning and fact. To some of us the controversy between induction and deduction has always seemed rather profitless. The Baconian insistence upon the absolute necessity of fact as the basis of all solid theory is of course indisputably just. But to talk of proceeding from abstract theory to the investigation of fact seems as barren as to wander aimlessly in unassorted realms of fact without the assistance of theory. It is comforting, therefore, to find so clear and systematic a thinker as Huxley unwilling to identify his processes with either complete induction or deduction: ‘Those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and any one who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of nature,” that is, by the invention of hypotheses which, though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with; and not unfrequently, in spite of a long career of usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous in the long run.’[437]
Now Darwin obviously finds himself in precisely the uncertainty between inductive and deductive methods that Huxley here indicates. His instincts were naturally hostile to abstract theory, which used facts as playthings to substantiate soaring conjecture. He says in regard to one scientific author: ‘I am not convinced, partly I think owing to the deductive cast of much of his reasoning; and I know not why, but I never feel convinced by deduction, even in the case of H. Spencer’s writings.’[438] And he speaks even more specifically concerning Spencer himself: ‘I always feel a malicious pleasure when a priori conclusions are knocked on the head; and therefore I felt somewhat like a devil when I read your remarks on Herbert Spencer.’[439] Early and late he emphasized that ‘no one has a right to speculate without distinct facts.’[440] Yet at the same time he urges and reiterates that the mere collection of facts, without some basis of theory for guidance and elucidation, is foolish and profitless: ‘I am a firm believer that without speculation there is no good and original observation.’[441]
The truth is, the importance of imaginative power in the equipment of a great scientist is often underestimated. Exact and watchful vision is the first necessity; but it does not go far, or not farthest, except as it has behind it the thoughts that wander through eternity, the vast and questing genius that is perpetually on the lookout for causes and explanations and is eager to evolve theory from the sure and substantial but inanimate basis of fact. Even Thoreau almost deplores his intense preoccupation with the fascinating business of observing: ‘Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye. He must look through and beyond her. To look at her is fatal as to look at the head of Medusa. It turns the man of science to stone. I feel that I am dissipated by so many observations.... I have almost a slight, dry headache as the result of all this observing.’[442] Theory, speculation, must be perpetually checked and restrained by the precision of systematic logic, but the accurate eye and the careful finger need to be supplemented by the eternally active mind.
As to the activity of Darwin’s mind there can be no question whatever. He not only saw, but he thought incessantly. If you compare the Beagle Journal with the Journal of Thoreau, you see at once how much more quick and ready the English naturalist is with speculation and conjecture. The smallest fact is apt to set him off on a train of theory, where Thoreau simply records, or possibly compares, and passes on. How significant is the brief comment of Asa Gray, in regard to some botanical point which as a specialist in that line he should have been the first to develop: ‘That is real Darwin. I just wonder you and I never thought of it. But he did.’[443] And he not only thought himself, he had the rarer and more valuable faculty of making others think. His mind was so intense and so magnetic in its constant activity that all those who came into contact with it were impelled and fired to work double on speculation of their own. ‘You stimulate my mind,’ says Gray again, ‘far more than any one else, except, perhaps Hooker.’[444]
On this point of intellectual fertility, as on his other scientific qualifications, it is most interesting to hear Darwin himself. The mental activity was present early and late, and it does not appear that the exuberance of youth especially emphasized it or that it tended to increase with the later desire to develop and elaborate his special theories. He himself says in the Autobiographical sketch: ‘I am not conscious of any change in my mind during the last thirty years, excepting in one point: ... I think that I have become a little more skillful in guessing right explanations and in devising experimental tests; but this may probably be the result of mere practice, and of a larger store of knowledge.’[445]
The quick intelligence was always working, sometimes wearily, sometimes eagerly, but working, unless absolute physical prostration forbade. When he is too exhausted, he complains: ‘Facts compel me to conclude that my brain was never formed for much thinking.’[446] But if so, he certainly lived contrary to his nature. He tells us that he cannot resist forming hypotheses on every subject.[447] Sometimes he bewails the tendency, realizing its drawbacks and dangers. Sometimes he gives way to it, recognizing its charm: ‘It is delightful to have many points fermenting in one’s brain.’[448] Speculation is fascinating. Theory gives form and texture to the fleeting drift and confusion of fact. Yet even when one indulges with most enthusiasm, a touch of humor shows that the satisfaction must be tempered with a certain lack of entire confidence: ‘That is a splendid fact about the white moths; it warms one’s very blood to see a theory thus almost proved to be true.’[449]