THE HALO OF A HUNDRED YEARS
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hypothesis, to which many naturalists, misled by Bacon's thoroughly unscientific temper, had been too averse: Accordingly, the trend of scientific method had become tainted, if not with disastrous consequences, at least with results inimical to progress, as we account means of progress now. This, the former of the two aspects mentioned above, has been delineated admirably by Romanes, from whom, I may say in passing, I derived the only knowledge of Darwin's personality, conveyed at first-hand by a mutual friend, that I possess.
Felix quit potuit rerum cognoscere causas.
While it may well be impossible to assail Romanes's panegyric, and while it is eminently fitting that we should throb to its mood at this time, Darwin would have been the last man to magnify his own office,
- ↑ "Darwin and After Darwin," Vol. I., pp. 4-7 (London, 1892).