flowed in abundantly, and came from all countries of Europe, the United States, the British Colonies, and Brazil. Sweden sent the astonishing number of 2296 subscriptions; persons of all ranks contributed, from a bishop to a seamstress. Over £4,000 in all was subscribed, and it was resolved, in the first place, to procure the best possible statue. This work was entrusted to Mr. Boehm, R.A., with admirable results. Permission was obtained to place it in the great hall of the British Museum of Natural History, South Kensington, and here it was unveiled on June 9, 1885, by the Prince of Wales, who accepted the statue on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum from Professor Huxley as representing the subscribers. It is agreed that the statue is excellent, the attitude easy and dignified, the expression natural and characteristic. The only defect is that the hands are unlike Darwin's. The balance, about £2,200, remaining over from the fund, was given to the Royal Society to be invested for the promotion of biological studies and researches.

The conditions under which Darwin lived were just those in which, as The Saturday Review put it, his sweet and gentle nature could blossom into perfection. "Arrogance, irritability, and envy, the faults that ordinarily beset men of genius, were not so much conquered as non-existent in a singularly simple and generous mind. It never occurred to him that it would be to his gain to show that he and not some one else was the author of a discovery. If he was appealed to for help by a fellowworker, the thought never passed into his mind that he had secrets to divulge which would lessen his importance.

It was science, not the fame of science, that he loved, and he helped science by the temper in which he approached it. He had to say things which were distasteful to a large portion of the public, but he won the ear even of his most adverse critics by the manifest absence of a mere desire to shine, by his modesty, and by his courtesy. He told honestly what he thought to be the truth, but he told it without a wish to triumph or to wound. There is an arrogance of unorthodoxy as well as an arrogance of orthodoxy, and if ideas that a quarter of a century ago were regarded with dread are now accepted without a pang, the rapidity of the change of opinion, if not the change itself, is largely due to the fact that the leading exponent of these ideas was the least arrogant of men."

Geniality and genuine humour must be remembered as among the many delightful traits in Darwin's character. Mr. Edmund Yates, in his "Celebrities at Home" (second series), describes his as a laugh to remember, "a rich Homeric laugh, round and full, musical and jocund." "At a droll suggestion of Mr. Huxley's, or a humorous doubt insinuated in the musical tones of the President of the Royal Society (Sir Joseph Hooker), the eyes twinkle under the massive overhanging brows, the Socratic head, as Professor Tyndall loves to call it, is thrown back, and over the long white beard rolls out such a laugh as we have attempted to describe."

Exceptionally good-hearted and sympathetic as a man, Darwin discovered his life-work, and did it, in spite of a most powerful hindrance, in the best possible manner, with the least possible waste of force. But, more than doing his work, he set others to work, incited them,

suggested to them, aided them, scattered among them seeds which, finding fertile soil, sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold. His greatness is as much in what he caused others to do as in what he did himself. Even in arousing antagonism, though by the gentlest means, he did a great work, for he secured examination and criticism in such bulk that the whole world was leavened by his doctrine; and in controversy no man has any disagreeable reminiscence of him. Many have cause to bless the day when they first came into communication with Darwin, to find him welcome them, encourage them, place his own vast stores of knowledge and thought at their disposal, and, best of all, make them love him naturally as a dear friend.

Darwin's was one of those open and frank minds which are entrenched behind no rampart of isolating prejudice, and elevated on no platform of conscious superiority. It was equally natural to him to ask and to give information. No one ever was more accessible to all who genuinely sought his aid in their inquiries or their projects; no one ever more truly sought information from all quarters whence truth was attainable. Hence the mass of his letters to all kinds of persons is enormous, and only a small proportion, probably, will ever be published. His letters are like his conversation, free, frank, without a trace of arrière pensée, praising others where possibleand no man ever found it more possible to praise others more genuinely-depreciating himself and his work most unduly. "You so overestimate the value of what I do," he writes on one occasion, "that you make me feel ashamed of myself, and wish to be worthy of such praise."

Again, "You have indeed passed a most magnificent eulogium on me, and I wonder that you were not afraid of hearing 'oh, oh,' or some other sign of disapprobation. Many persons think that what I have done in science has been much overrated, and I very often think so myself, but my comfort is that I have never consciously done anything to gain applause." Here we see the scientific man occupying the highest possible moral standpoint as a seeker after truth. His election as one of the honorary members of the Physiological Society was to him a "wholly unexpected honour," and a "mark of sympathy" which pleased him in a very high degree.

"Work," he writes on another occasion, "is my sole pleasure in life." "It is so much more interesting to observe than to write." So long as he could devise experiments and mark the results he continued to do it, rather than prepare his voluminous notes on many subjects for publication. "Trollope, in one of his novels, gives as a maxim of constant use by a brickmaker, 'It is dogged as does it,' and I have often and often," wrote Darwin, "thought this is a motto for every scientific worker." How faithfully he adopted it himself those who read through any one of his experimental books can appreciate. He habitually read or heard some good novel as a recreation, and took a by no means restricted interest in general literature.

Considering how usual it is for leading thinkers to be drawn into controversy, even when most desirous of avoiding it, it is remarkable how little Darwin was mixed up with hotly-debated questions. "I hate controversy," he writes, "and it wastes much time, at least with a man

who, like myself, can work for only a short time in a day.” One of the few occasions on which he appeared as a champion of a cause was on the question of vivisection, in which a chivalrous feeling led him to intervene with the following letter to Professor Holmgren, of Upsala University, which was published in The Times of April 18, 1881. "I thought it fair,” he wrote, “to bear my share of the abuse poured in so atrocious a manner on all physiologists."

"DEAR SIR,-In answer to your courteous letter of April 7, I have no objection to express my opinion with respect to the right of experimenting on living animals. I use this latter expression as more correct and comprehensive than that of vivisection. You are at liberty to make any use of this letter which you may think fit, but if published I should wish the whole to appear. I have all my life been a strong advocate for humanity to animals, and have done what I could in my writings to enforce this duty. Several years ago, when the agitation against physiologists commenced in England, it was asserted that inhumanity was here practised, and useless suffering caused to animals; and I was led to think that it might be advisable to have an Act of Parliament on the subject. I then took an active part in trying to get a Bill passed, such as would have removed all just cause of complaint, and at the same time have left physiologists free to pursue their researches—a Bill very different from the Act which has since been passed. It is right to add that the investigation of the matter by a Royal Commission proved that the accusations made against our