EMINENT PERSONS



EMINENT PEKSONS



BIOGKAPHIES



REPRINTED FROM THE TIMES



VOLUME III
1882 1886



3L0nHon

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK
AND I;e ^imc0 OFFICE, PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE

1893

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PAGE

CHAKLES EGBERT DARWIN ..... 1

GENERAL GARIBALDI ...... 12

DR. PUSEY . . . . . .42

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY .... 65

LEON GAMBETTA ...... 80

PRINCE GORTCHAKOFF ...... 98

SIR GEORGE JESSEL ...... 110

THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD . . . .119

MR. CHENERY . . (fio^ry ' PV* </f/in ) . 141

SIR BARTLE FRERE ...... 149

MR. FAWCETT . . . . . . .160

GENERAL GORDON ...... 191

EARL CAIRNS ....... 199

VICTOR HUGO ....... 207

GENERAL GRANT . . . . . . 230

SIR MOSES MONTEFIORE ..... 253

LORD SHAFTESBURY ...... 262

LORD STRATHNAIRN ...... 278

MR. FORSTER . . . . . . . 286

COUNT BEUST . 308



CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN
OBITUARY NOTICE, FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1882

EXACTLY a year to a day has separated the deaths of two of the
most powerful men of this century some have said of any
century ; and those who care for the task will find some very
curious analogies between the progress and the ultimate results
of the work of the two men, totally different as were the spheres
in which they exercised their remarkable powers. On 19th
April 1881 all the civilised world held its breath at the news
of the death of Lord Beaconsfield ; not less must be the effect
upon the most civilised part of the civilised world when the
announcement of the death of Charles Darwin flashes over the
face of that earth whose secrets he has done more than any
other to reveal. All who knew anything of Mr. Darwin know
that, massive as he seemed, it was only by the greatest care and
the simplest habits that he was able to maintain a moderate
amount of health and strength. Mr. Darwin had been suffering
for some time past from weakness of the heart, but had con-
tinued to do a slight amount of experimental work up to the
last. His death took place at about four o'clock on Wednesday
afternoon.

Fifteen volumes lie before us and nearly as many memoirs
large ^and small, the product of forty-five years' work a product
which in quantity would do credit to the most robust constitu-
tion. But when we consider Mr. Darwin's always feeble health
and his deliberately slow method of work, never hasting but
rarely resting, the result seems marvellous. But, wonderful as
VOL. m & B






2 EMINENT PERSONS

this is under the circumstances, it is not by mere quantity Mr.
Darwin's work will be judged ; the quantity is of chief import-
ance in respect of the multifarious channels throughout which
his influence has spread.

On the great principle of hereditariness of which he himself
was the prophet and expounder, Mr. Darwin could not help
being a remarkable man. Through his father descended from
Erasmus Darwin, one of the most remarkable and original men
of his age, and through his mother from Josiah Wedgwood, a
man in his own line of scarcely less originality, Mr. Darwin
was bound, under favourable surroundings, to develop powers
far beyond the average. Charles Kobert Darwin (he seldom
used the second name) was the son of Robert Waring Darwin,
the third son by his first marriage of Erasmus Darwin, best
known to the general reader by his scientifico-poetic work, The
Botanic Garden. The late Mr. Darwin's father was a physician
at Shrewsbury, who, although a man of considerable originality,
devoted his powers almost entirely to his profession ; his
mother, as we have said, was a daughter of Josiah Wedgwood.
He was born at Shrewsbury on 12th February 1809, so that he
has died in his seventy-fourth year.

Mr. Darwin was educated at Shrewsbury School under Dr.
Butler, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. In 1825 he went
to Edinburgh University, therein following the example of
his grandfather, where he spent two sessions. Here, among
other subjects, he studied marine zoology, and at the close
of 1826 read before the Plinian Society of the University
two short papers, probably his first, one of them on the
Ova of Flustra. From Edinburgh Mr. Darwin went to Christ's
College, Cambridge, where he took his Bachelor's degree in
1831, proceeding to M.A. in 1837. The interval was of
epoch-making importance. We believe that Darwin, like
Murchison, was a keen fox -hunter in his youth, and that
it was in the field that his great habits of observation were
first awakened.

In the autumn of 1831, Captain Fitzroy having offered to
give up part of his own cabin to any naturalist who would
accompany Her Majesty's ship " Beagle " in her surveying voyage
round the world, Mr. Darwin volunteered his services without
salary, but on condition that he should have entire disposal of
his collections, all of which he ultimately deposited in various



CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 3

public institutions. The " Beagle " sailed from England
27th December 1831, and returned 28th October 1836, having
thus been absent nearly five years. In more ways than one
these five years were the most eventful of Mr. Darwin's life.
During these five years the " Beagle " circumnavigated the world,
and it is not too much to say that single-handed Mr. Darwin
during the voyage did more for natural history in all its
varied departments than any expedition has done since ;
much more when we consider the momentous results that
followed. No one can read the simple, yet intensely interest-
ing Naturalist's Voyage Round the World, without tracing in
it the germs of all that Mr. Darwin has subsequently done in
natural science.

Simplicity and freedom from technicality have been the
leading characteristics of all Mr. Darwin's best-known and most
influential works ; and in this volume on the voyage of the
" Beagle " there is scarcely a page that will not interest any ordi-
narily intelligent man, and many pages that must claim the
attention of the mere reader of stories of adventure. Full of
incident it is, especially during the author's long sojourn in
South America and in the vicinity of Magellan's Straits. Mr.
Darwin's phenomenal genius as a scientific observer is seen
throughout when watching the method of catching and taming
the wild horses of the Pampas, as when investigating the struc-
ture of the coral reefs of the Pacific. The first edition was
published early in 1845, and the second was dedicated to Sir
Charles Lyell, who, with his usual acuteness, early perceived
the remarkable originality of the young naturalist, and to whom
the latter was indebted for much wise counsel and help, as is
evident from the recently-published life and letters of the great
geologist.

That was not the only immediate result of this great
voyage ; under the superintendence of Mr. Darwin, and with
abundant description and annotation by him, the Zoology of
the expedition was published before the narrative, in 1840,
with Professor Owen, Mr. Waterhouse, the Rev. L. Jenyns, and
Mr. Bell as contributing specialists. Not only so, but still also
before the general narrative Mr. Darwin published his first original
contribution to science in his Structure and Distribution of Coral
Beefs (1842). This work for the first time shed clear light
upon the method of work of the tiny creatures whose exquisite



4 EMINENT PERSONS

fabrics are spread over the face of the Pacific. True, quite
recently Mr. Murray has broached a new theory, or rather
modification of Darwin's theory, which is beginning to find
acceptance ; but even if universally accepted it will not detract
from the original estimate of the work of the " Beagle " naturalist.
Still further, we have a direct result of the voyage in a
volume, published in 1844, on the Volcanic Islands visited
during the Voyage of the Beagle, and in 1846, Geological Observa-
tions in South America. Both these works are even now
referred to by geologists as classical, and as having suggested
lines of research of the highest fertility. In the Transactions
of the Geological Society, moreover, other memoirs suggested by
the results of the voyage will be found, one as early as 1838.
But even that is not the earliest important paper of the great
observer. Just a year after his return, in November 1837,
he read to the Geological Society a paper, to be found
in its Transactions, " On the Formation of Vegetable Mould."
This paper gave the result of observations begun some time
before, observations only completed in his latest published
work, that on Earthworms, reviewed in these columns only a
few months ago. Experiments were arranged for, we then
pointed out, which took forty years to ripen. Such far-
seeing deliberation can only be the attribute of the greatest
minds, which can see the end from the beginning. Other
results of the voyage in botany and entomology we could refer
to weie it needful.

But the greatest result of all was probably that on the mind
of the naturalist himself. Passing over a generation, the spirit
of his grandfather seems to have reappeared in Charles Darwin
with intensified power and precision. We need not here enter
into the delicate distinctions which exist between the develop-
mental theories of Erasmus, which were prematurely sown in
unfruitful and unprepared soil, and those of his greater grand-
son, which have revolutionised research and thought in every
department of human activity. The inherited germ was doubt-
less rapidly and fully developed during the splendid opportunities
presented by the voyage of the " Beagle." Throughout all his
subsequent work the influence of this voyage is apparent, and
continued reference is made to the stores of observation laid up
during those eventful five years.

Mr. Darwin's subsequent life was totally uneventful. Three



CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 5

years after his return, in the beginning of 1839, he married his
cousin, Emma Wedgwood, and in 1842 he took up his residence
at Down, Beckenham, Kent, of which county he was a magistrate.
There he has lived since, and there on Wednesday he died. It
is known to his friends that Mr. Darwin never quite recovered
from the evil effects of his long voyage. He himself tells us that
during nearly the whole time he suffered from sea-sickness, an
affliction which no constitution could altogether withstand. As
we have said, it has only been by the quietest living and the
greatest carefulness that Mr. Darwin was able to keep himself
in moderate health and working order. His habits and manners
were of childlike simplicity, his bearing of the most winning
geniality, and his modesty and evident unconsciousness of his
own greatness almost phenomenal. In sending a letter or
contribution to a journal, he asked for its insertion with a
doubting hesitancy, rare even in a tiro. His personal influence
on young scientific men can with difficulty be calculated ; his
simple readiness to listen and suggest and help has won, the
gratitude of many an aspiring observer.

Since he took up his residence at Down, Mr. Darwin's life
has been marked mainly by the successive publication of those
works which have revolutionised modern thought. In 1859
was published what may be regarded as the most momentous
of all his works, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selec-
tion. No one who had not reached manhood at the time can
have any idea of the consternation caused by the publication
of this work. We need not repeat the anathemas that were
hurled at the head of the simple-minded observer, and the
prophecies of ruin to religion and morality, if Mr. Darwin's
doctrines were accepted. No one, we are sure, would be more
surprised than the author himself at the results which followed.
But all this has long passed. The work, slowly at first, but
with increasing rapidity, made its way to general acceptance,
and its anathematisers have been bound to find a modus vivendi
between their creeds and the theories propounded in the Origin
of Species. The revolution in scientific doctrine and scientific
method brought about by the publication of this work was ably
pointed out by Professor Huxley two years ago in his lecture on
"The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species." Mr. Huxley
says :

"In fact, those who have watched the progress of science



6 EMINENT PERSONS

within the last ten years will bear me out to the full when I
assert that there is no field of biological inquiry in which the
influence of the Origin of Species is not traceable; the foremost men
of science in every country are either avowed champions of its
leading doctrines, or at any rate abstain from opposing them ; a
host of young and ardent investigators seek for and find inspira-
tion and guidance in Mr. Darwin's great work ; and the general
doctrine of Evolution, to one side of which it gives expression,
finds in the phenomena of biology a firm base of operations
whence it may conduct its conquest of the whole realm of
nature."

But it is not only in physical and natural science that the
revolutionary influence of the Origin of Species is seen. It is
not too much to say that the doctrines propounded in this
volume, in The Descent of Man, and other subsequent works,
have influenced thought and research in every direction. It
has been said, perhaps prematurely, that one must seek back
to Newton, or even Copernicus, to find a man whose influence
on human thought and methods of looking at the universe has
been as radical as that of the naturalist who has just died. Of
course Mr. Darwin's originality has been assailed. Kant, Laplace,
Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and others, and of course Lucretius,
have been brought forward as the real originators of the fertile
idea which has taken its name from Mr. Charles Darwin. Give
these old-world worthies all the credit which is justly their due,
and it is not little ; let it be granted that Darwin received the
first initiative in his fertile career of research from a study of
what had been done by his predecessors ; and yet how conies
it that these old theories fell comparatively dead and bore no
substantial fruit ? One reason must be that, as propounded by
Mr. Darwin, the theory of evolution had a mature vitality which
compelled acceptance, and the phenomenal vigour of which is
seen in the results. Mr. Darwin's great theory, in some of its
parts, may require modification ; he himself latterly, we believe,
did not seek to maintain it in all its original integrity. As has
been suggested, some greater law may yet be found which will
cover Darwinism and take a wider sweep ; but, whatever
development science may assume, Mr. Darwin will in all the
future stand out as one of the giants in scientific thought and
scientific investigation.

All Mr. Darwin's subsequent works were developments in



CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 7

different directions of the great principles applied in the Origin
of Species. Between 1844 and 1854 he published through the
Ray and other societies various monographs, which even his
greatest admirers admit do not do him the highest credit as a
minute anatomist. His next great work, published in 1862,
was that on the Fertilisation of Orchids ; this, with the work on
(>oss and Self -Fertilisation of Plants (1876) and that on the
Forms of Flowers (1878), and various papers in scientific publica-
tions on the agency of insects in fertilisation, opened up a new
field, which in his own hands and the hands of his numerous
disciples have led to results of the greatest interest and the
greatest influence on a knowledge of the ways of plants.
Other works belonging to this category are those On the
Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants, Insectivorous Plants,
and The Movements of Plants (1881), all of which opened up
perfectly fresh fields of investigation, and shed light on the
most intimate workings of nature. Mr. Darwin's influence in
these, as in others of his works, has acted like an inspira-
tion, leading men to follow methods and attain results which a
quarter of a century ago were beyond the scope of the most
fantastic dream.

But perhaps the works with which the name of Mr. Darwin
is most intimately associated in popular estimation, and indeed
the works which have had the deepest influence on the tendencies
of modern thought and research in those departments in which
humanity is most deeply interested, are those bearing on the
natural history of man. Nine years after the publication of the
Origin of Species, appeared (1868), in two volumes, the great
collection of instances and experiments bearing on the Variation
of Plants and Animals under Domestication. We have called
this a collection of facts, and the same term might be applied,
with greater or less exactness, to all the other works of Mr.
Darwin. This is the characteristic Darwinian method. Years
and years are spent in the accumulation of facts with open-
minded watchfulness as to the tendency of the results. The
expressed inferences in Mr. Darwin's works are few ; he piles
instance on instance and experiment on experiment, and, almost
invariably, the conclusion to which he comes seems but the
expression of the careful and unbiassed reader's own thought.
Nowhere is this more signally evident than in the work on
Domesticated Animals and Plants.



8 EMINENT PERSONS

The results which were brought out in those volumes were
full of significance, while at the same time they afforded
abundant occasion for the opponents of Darwinism to scoff and
pour harmless contempt on the whole line of inquiry, forgetting
or wilfully shutting their eyes to the fact that the results which
Mr. Darwin showed were possible on a small scale bore no
proportion to the gigantic efforts of nature through untold ages.
The chapters on Inheritance in this work were full of signi-
ficance, and seemed a natural transition to the work which
followed three years later (1871) The Descent of Man and
Selection in Relation to Sex. Even greater consternation was
caused in many circles by the publication of this work than by
the Origin of Species. And the reason of this is obvious. Not
only did it seem directly to assail the amour propre of humanity,
but to imperil some of its most deeply-cherished beliefs. With
wonderful rapidity, however, did men of all shades of belief
manage to reconcile themselves to the new and disturbing factor
introduced into the sphere of scientific and philosophical
speculation. All sorts of half-way refuges were sought for and
found by those whose mental comfort was threatened, and,
again, as before, there was little difficulty in finding a modus
vivendi between two sets of doctrines that at first sight seemed
totally irreconcilable.

After all, what have the highest aspirations of mankind to fear
from the investigations and speculations of a man who is capable
of writing as Mr. Darwin does in the concluding pages of his
Descent of Man 1 " Important as the struggle for existence has been,
and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of man's nature is
concerned, there are other agencies more important. For the
moral qualities .are advanced either directly or indirectly, much
more through the effects of habit, the reasoning powers,
instruction, religion, etc., than through natural selection ;
though to this latter agency may be safely attributed the
social instincts which afforded the basis for the development of
the moral sense. . . . For my own part I would as soon be
descended from that heroic little monkey who braved his
dreaded enemy to save the life of his keeper, or from that old
baboon who, descending from the mountains, carried away in
triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs
as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up
bloody sacrifices, practises infanticide without remorse, treats



CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 9

his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the
grossest superstition. Man may be excused for feeling some
pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to
the very summit of the organic scale ; and the fact of his having
thus risen instead of having been aboriginally placed there may
give him hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future.
But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with
the truth as far as our reason permits us to discern it ; and
I have given the evidence to the best of my ability. We must,
however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his
noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased,
with benevolence which extends not only to other men, but to
the humblest living creature, with his godlike intellect,
which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of
the solar system with all these exalted powers, man still
bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his low
origin."

Among scientific men themselves, among those who welcomed
the Darwinian method and the distinctive doctrines of Darwin-
ism, none of the master's works have probably met with more
criticism than that on the Descent of Man. Not that the
naturalists of the highest standing have any hesitation in
accepting the general principles illustrated in the Descent of
Man ; the ablest and most candid biologists admit that in
that direction the truth seems to lie ; but that the various stages
are so incomplete, the record is so imperfect, that before stereo-
typing their beliefs it would be wise to wait for more light.
The general conclusion is not doubted, but how it has been
reached by nature is by no means evident. And in this
connection we cannot do better than quote the words of Professor
Huxley in the lecture already alluded to, and which, we are
sure, Mr. Darwin himself would have endorsed with all his
strength :

" History warns us, however, that it is the customary fate of
new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions ; and,
as matters now stand, it is hardly rash to anticipate that, in
another twenty years, the new generation, educated under the
influences of the present day, will be in danger of accepting the
main doctrines of the Origin of Species with as little reflection,
and, it may be, with as little justification, as so many of our
contemporaries twenty years ago rejected them. Against any



10 EMINENT PERSONS

such a consummation let us all devoutly pray ; for the scientific
spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally-held
truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. Now, the
essence of the scientific spirit is criticism. It tells us that to
whatever doctrine claiming our assent we should reply, ' Take it
if you can compel it.' The struggle for existence holds as much
in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a
species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its
power of resisting extinction by its rivals."

As a sort of side issue of the Descent of Man, and as throwing
light upon the doctrines developed therein, with much more of
independent interest and suggestiveness, The Expression of the
Emotions in Men and Animals was published in 1872. This is,
perhaps, the most amusing of Mr. Darwin's works, while at the
same time it is one which evidently involved observation
and research of the most minute and careful kind. It is one,
moreover, which shows how continually and instinctively the
author was on the watch for instances that were likely to have
any bearing on the varied lines of his researches.

To attempt to reckon up the influence which Mr. Darwin's
multifarious work has had upon modern thought and modern
life in all its phases seems as difficult a task as it would be to
count the number and trace the extent of the sound-waves from
a park of artillery. The impetus he has given to science, not
only in his own, but in other departments, can only find a
parallel in Newton. Through his influence the whole method
of seeking after knowledge has been changed, and the increasing
rapidity with which the results are every day developed becomes
more and more bewildering. To what remote corners in religion,
in legislation, in education, in everyday life, from Imperial
Assemblies and venerable Universities to humble board schools
and remote Scottish manses, the impetus initiated on board the
" Beagle " and developed at the quiet and comfortable home at
Beckenham has reached, those who are in the whirl and sweep
of it are not in a position to say. Under the immediate influence
of the sad loss we can only state a few obvious facts and make a
few quite as obvious reflections ; in time we may be able to
realise how great a man now belongs to the past. That Mr.
Darwin's work was not done nor his capacity for work exhausted
was well enough seen in his recently-published work on Worms ;
and with the help of his able and congenial sons, Mr. George