The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-03-14

| The centenary Of Lincoln was also
the centenary of Charles Darwin, great
est of biologists, the most famous OF
men of science. Last year was cele
brated the fftieth recurrence of yet
more important date, for the birth OF
evolution means more than the birth
even of its ereator-if the years were
to be remembered there could hardly
be filter starting point for a new
chronology than 1858; never again can
men think and feel as they did before
into their hands. Yet there is a spe-
cial significance and moral in the fact
that the one date crowds SO hard upon
| the other. 'fSuccess was in the silences,
| though fame was in the song;' what
| this centenary should eloquently re-
mind US of is the long years of patient
| preparation that went to the master
work. Like Lincoln, Darwin was late
in achieving fame; he was nearly fifty
! before his revolutionary doctrine was
given to the public; twenty years of
| marvelously careful and methodical
| work had provided the fulerum by
| which he was to move the world.
Charles Darwin was one of those
dominating great men that England has
way of producing from time to time
to offset the more systematic and or
derby march of the intellect in con-
tinental countries. How they stand out
figures like Newton, Shakespeare,
Milton, Locke, Darwin, Kelvin! They
testify to the innate genius of race
which has always "muddled through, -
which has depended as little on system
in science and scholarship as in litera-
ture and war. To whatever field one
turns, it is>apt to appear that while the
stout marching regiments of learning
and talent carry another flag, the lead
er is an Englishman. It is this alone
which enables desultory amateurish
England, with her Anticipated universi-
ties, her contempt for organization, her
philistine disregard for science and let
tiers. her neglect of her great men, to-
keep pace with sober. learned Germany
and clever, orderly France.
In many ways. too, Darwin was the
typical great Englishman-self-t taught,
irregular, free from official ties, a
thing to chance and natural genius
supported by the patient tenacity of
the breed that never lets go. He was
neither universal genius of the Leon
ardo sort, nor yet trained specialist
such as the modern laboratory pro-
duces. Though patient and studious. he
was not man of colossal learning like
the Germans, Mommsen and Helmholtz
his strength just sufficed for his
work; there was no margin. If his
speciality had not happened to be the
great problem of the day, he might
have taken but modest place in his
tory as an amiable amateur of science;
the end crowns the work.
How Darwin ranks intellectually
among the worlds greatest men may
be left for the curious in that rather
futile field of speculation. 1t may per-
haps be argued that his work demand
ed no such mental grasp as that of
Newton, whose intellect some students
have given the first place in the his
tory of human thought. Darwin g
problems were in sense comparative
~ simple, or at least not SO remote
from ordinary comprehension. His re-
suits, when reached, the man in the
street could comprehend. Nor can it
be said that his work was Indispensable.
On all sides there were glimmerings of
the truth; there were many men alive
quite capable, given the idea, of work
ing out his theory-how its publication
was forestalled by Wallace is a fami-
liar tale. Yet when all is said, it was
Darwin and none of the others who
shaped the theory of evolution, and it
cannot be set down to a lucky chance
His was the mind that first conceived
the idea in its overwhelming fullness,
his the patient labor, the large grasp
that mastered countless details for the
support of daring hypothesis. Other
thinkers in other fields may have shown
more brilliance, more profundity, more
originality, but intellect in the abstract
can hardly be measured. What matters
is the task and its accomplishment. and
from this point eff view Darwin must
be put among the very greatest men
of all times. He did magnifcently a
work which remains to be completed,
but which will never have to be done
over. He so changed the current of the
world s thought that the nineteenth
century is likely to be known in his
tory as the age of Darwin There is
hardly a sphere of human activity that
does not bear his stamp; no scientist
of any era has exerted so profound an
influence upon the life of man. There
are really no words, from this point of
view, to express his Importance or his
greatness; in comparison Napoleon,
whose life overlapped his, was mere
puppet parading on toy stage.
1t was notably able family from
which Darwin sprung. His father, as
has been seen, was man of fine gifts.
The paternal grandfather, Erasmus
Darwin (1731-1S02). author OF ssZoono-
mia was the greatest of Ilamarck s
predecessors in the special field which
Charles Darwin was to make his own;
and though the views Of The pious
Paley prevailed in the eighteenth cen
tury, Erasmus Darwin was a true
pioneer. In our own time Charles Oar
win s second son, Sir George Howard
Darwin, has become one of the fore
most authorities in that difficult and
complicated field OF science which is
concerned with the moon and the tides.
Francis Darwin is a botanist. Another
famous kinsman is Francis Cation Ca
grandson of Erasmus Darwin), who
may well have found in the connection