CHAPTER XXVI.
HIS LAST ILLNESS (1882).
In the last few months of his life, towards the end of 1881 and beginning of 1882, Darwin began to suffer from his heart, causing attacks of pain and faintness which increased in number. On March 7th, 1882, he had one of these seizures when walking, “and this was the last time that he was able to reach his favourite ‘sand-walk’” (“Life and Letters”). After this he became rather better, and on April 17th was able to record the progress of an experiment for his son Francis. The following sentences are quoted from the “Life and Letters”:—
“During the night of April 18th, about a quarter to twelve, he had a severe attack and passed into a faint, from which he was brought back to consciousness with very great difficulty. He seemed to recognise the approach of death, and said, ‘I am not the least afraid to die.’ All the next morning he suffered from terrible nausea and faintness, and hardly rallied before the end came.
“He died at about four o’clock on Wednesday, April 19th, 1882.”
He was buried in Westminster Abbey on April 26th.
Thus died one of the greatest of men, after a life of patient and continuous work interrupted only by ill-health; a man who was, perhaps, more widely attacked and more grossly misrepresented than any other, but who lived to see his teachings almost universally received; a man whose quiet, peaceful life of work, and whose precarious health, prevented that large intercourse with his fellow-men which is generally forced upon greatness, but who was 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.
And for all those of us who have loved Darwin, although we have never seen him, we can at any rate remember that we have lived in his time and have heard the echoes of his living voice; he has been even more to us than he will be to future generations of mankind—a mighty tradition, gaining rather than losing in force and in overwhelming interest as each passing age, inspired by his example, guided by his teachings, adds to the knowledge of nature, and in so doing gives an ever deeper meaning to his life and work.
FOOTNOTES
[A] See Professor Meldola’s interesting Presidential Address to the Entomological Society of London (January, 1896) on the use of the imagination in science, printed in the Transactions of the Society and in Nature. See also “The Advancement of Science” (London, 1890), in which Professor Lankester maintains (p. 4): “All true science deals with speculation and hypothesis, and acknowledges as its most valued servant—its indispensable ally and helpmeet—that which our German friends call ‘Phantasie’ and we ‘the Imagination.’” Consult also Professor Tyndall’s essay “On the Scientific Use of the Imagination” (“Fragments of Science,” 1889, vol. ii., p. 101).