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and he fulfilled it well. But it is a mission which has to bo refulfilled again and again, as human thought changes, and human science develops. For if, in any ago or country, tho God who seems to bo revealed by Naturo seems also different from the God who is revealed by the then-popular religion, then that God and the religion which tells of that God will gradually cease to be believed in.

"For the demands of reason-as nono know better than good Bishop Butler-must be and ought to be satisfied. And, therefore, when a popular war arises between the ronson of any generation and its theology, then it behooves the ministers of religion to inquire, with all humility and godly fear, on whose sido lies the fault; whether the theology which they expound is all that it should be, or whether the reason of thoso who impugu it is all that it should be."

Pronouncing it to be the duty of the naturalist to find out the how of things, and of the natural theologian to find out the why, Mr. Kingsley continues:

"But if it be said, 'After all, there is no why; the doctrine of evolution, by doing away with the theory of creation, does away with that of final causes,' let us answer boldly, 'Not in the least.' We might accept all that Mr. Darwin, all that Prof. Huxley, all that other most ablo men havo so learnedly and acutely written on physical science, and yet preserve our natural theology on the same basis as that on which Butler and Paley left it. That we should have to develop it I do not deny.

"Let us rather look with calmness, and even with hope and good-will, on these new theories; they surely mark a tendency toward a more, not a less, Scriptural view of Nature.

"Of old it was said by Him, without whom nothing is made, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' Shall wo quarrel with Science if she should show how these words aro true? What, in one word, should we have to say but this: Wo know of old that God was so wise that he could make all things; but, behold, he is so much wiser than even that, that ho can mako all things make themselves?'"'.

IX.

CHARLES DARWIN: A SKETCHI,

(NATURE, June 4, 1874, ACCOMPANYING A PORTRAIT.)

Two British naturalists, Robert Brown and Charles Darwin, have, more than any others, impressed their influence upon science in this nineteenth century. Unlike as these men and their works were and are, wo may most readily subserve the present purpose in what we are called upon to say of the latter by briefly comparing and contrasting the two.

Robert Brown died sixteen years ago, full of years and scientific honors, and he seems to have finished, several years earlier, all the scientific work that he had undertaken. To the other, Charles Darwin, a fair number of productive years may yet remain, and are earnestly hoped for. Both enjoyed the great advantago of being all their lives long free from exacting professional duties or cares, and so were able in the main to apply themselves to research without distraction and according to their bent. Both, at the beginning of their career, were attached to expeditions of exploration in the southern hemisphere, where they amassed rich stores of observation and materials, and probably struck out, while in the field, some of the best ideas which they subsequently developed. They worked in different fields and upon different methods;

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only in a single instance, so far as we know, have they handled the same topic; and in this the more penetrating insight of the younger naturalist into an interesting general problem may be appealed to in justification of a comparison which some will deem presumptuous. Be this as it may, there will probably be little dissent from the opinion that the characteristic trait common to the two is an unrivaled scientific sagacity. In this these two naturalists seem to us, each in his way, proeminent. There is a characteristic likeness, too-underlying much difference-in their admirable manner of dealing with facts closely, and at first hand, without the interposition of the formal laws, vague ideal conceptions, or "glittering generalities" which some philosophical naturalists make large use of.

A likeness may also be discerned in the way in which the works or contributions of predecessors and contemporaries are referred to. The brief historical. summaries prefixed to many of Mr. Brown's papers are models of judicial conscientiousness. And Mr. Darwin's evident delight at discovering that some one else has "said his good things before him," or Ims been on the verge of uttering them, seemingly equals that of making the discovery himself. It reminds ono of Goethe's insisting that his views in morphology must have been held before him and must be somewhere on record, so obvious did they appear to him.

Considering the quiet and retired lives led by both these men, and the prominent place they are likely to occupy in the history of science, the contrast between them as to contemporary and popular fame is very remarkable. While Mr. Brown was looked up to with the greatest reverence by all the learned botanists, he

was scarcely heard of by any one else; and out of botany he was unknown to science except as the discov erer of the Brownian motion of minute particles, which discovery was promulgated in a privately-printed pamphlet that few have ever seen. Although Mr. Darwin had been for twenty years well and widely known for his "Naturalist's Journal," his works on " Coral Islunds," on "Volcanic Islands," and especially for his researches on the Barnacles, it was not till about fifteen years ago that his name became popularly famous. Ever since no scientific name has been so widely spoken. Many others have had hypotheses or systems named after them, but no one else that we know of a department of bibliography. The nature of his latest researches accounts for most of the difference, but not for all. The Origin of Species is a fascinating topic, having interests and connections with every branch of science, natural and moral. The investigation of recondite aflinities is very dry and special; its questions, processes, and results alike—although in part generally presentable in the shape of morphology-are mainly, like the higher mathematics, unintelligible except to those who make them a subject of serious study. They are especially so when presented in Mr. Brown's manner. Perhaps no naturalist ever recorded the results of his investigations in fewer words and with greater precision than Robert Brown: certainly no one ever took more pains to state nothing beyond the precise point in question. Indeed, we have sometimes fancied that he preferred to enwrap rather than to ex plain his meaning; to put it into such a form that, unless you follow Solomon's injunction and dig for the wisdom as for hid treasure, you may hardly apprehend

it until you have found it all out for yourself, whon you will have the satisfaction of perceiving that Mr. Brown not only know all about it, but had put it upon record. Very different from this is the way in which Mr. Darwin takes his readers into his confidence, freely displays to them the sources of his information, and the working of his mind, and even shares with them all his doubts and misgivings, while in a clear exposition he sets forth the reasons which have guided him to his conclusions. These you may hesitate or decline to adopt, but you feel sure that they have been presented with perfect fairness; and if you think of arguments against them you may be confident that they have all been duly considered before.

The sagacity which characterizes these two natu ralists is seen in their success in finding decisive instances, and their sure insight into the meaning of things. As an instance of the latter on Mr. Darwin's part, and a justification of our venture to comparo him with the facile princeps botanicorum, we will, in conclusion, allude to the single instance in which they took the same subject in hand. In his papers on tho organs and modes of fecundation in Orchidew und Asclepiadew, Mr. Brown refers more than once to C. K. Sprengel's almost forgotten work, shows how the structure of the flowers in these orders largely requires the agency of insects for their fecundation, and is aware that "in Asclepiadew. . . . the insect so readily passes from one corolla to another that it not unfrequently visits every flower of the unbel." llo must also have contemplated the transport of pollen from plant to plant by wind and insects; and wo know from another source that he looked upon Spren

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