by Gamaliel Bradford. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1926. 8vo, xviii+282 pp. Illus. $3.50.
ON November 24, 1859, nine months past his fiftieth birthday and the very day of publication of his immortal work, Charles Darwin wrote to his friend Huxley the following highly characteristic letter: —
I have heard from Murray today that he sold whole edition of my Book the first day, & he wants another instantly, which confounds me, as I can make hardly any corrections. . . .
Remember how deeply I wish to know your general impression of the truth of the theory of Natural Selection, — only a short note — at some future time if you have any lengthy criticisms, I sd be infinitely grateful for them. You know how highly I value your opinion. — In haste, for I am bothered to death by this new edition
Ever yours
C. DARWIN
This letter, recently published by the present reviewer, reveals much of Darwin’s simplicity of character, his diffidence regarding his work, his keen desire to secure Huxley’s opinion as to the truth of his theory, his doubts as to the value of his own opinions, his utter unconsciousness that he had brought forth one of the most influential works of all time, the outcome of forty years of observation. This union of rare simplicity and transparency of thought with a high order of genius as an observer, thinker, and discoverer is the central thought of Gamaliel Bradford in the first three chapters and in the seventh chapter of the delightful volume before us.
The distinguished author, who has evidently devoted years of research, reading, and reflection to Darwin, is well qualified to interpret the character and the soul of the naturalist, both by his previous psychological studies into many lives, small and great, and by his quiet detachment in his home at Wellesley Hills, far from our noisy civilization. Seldom before has there been such a keen and sympathetic synthesis of Darwin as a man, of Darwin as a naturalist and hence a passionate observer, of Darwin as a generalize, of Darwin as the highest exemplar of the scientific spirit.
As set forth in Chapter VII, however, our author is betrayed into a very common error regarding this spirit — namely, that scientific qualities either are linked with or may develop into other virtues to some extent akin to the Christian ideal (p. 260). If our author had had to fight his way through a scientific career, as the present reviewer has been obliged to do, he would learn that the scientific genius, like the musical, artistic, or literary, is rarely linked with Christian or any other virtues. There are very few scientists who stand out like Darwin, Pasteur, and Fabre as embodiments of humility, tolerance, kindliness, patience, and charm, or who when smitten on one cheek meekly present the other. What a heaven on earth our scientific fraternity would be if it were full of saints like Darwin, Pasteur, and Fabre!
In this imagined scientific heaven of Gamaliel Bradford one could well dispense with the bygone heaven of which he writes in Chapter VI, depicting Darwin as a destroyer, as one ‘who made hell a laughingstock and heaven a dream.’ One could wish that this chapter, which is strongly stressed by the sales manager in advertising the volume, could have been omitted altogether, so far is it, not only from the even tenor of Darwin’s own way, but from the actual modern conditions of a renewed fraternity among penetrable and demonstrable matters of the mind and the wholly unsubstantial and immeasurable things of the human spirit. One of the most Christianlike characteristics of Darwin and one of his finest traits as exemplar of our own age was his genial, good-natured, unresistant attitude under the greatest provocation a scientist has ever endured. Nor is it accurate in these days to speak of Darwin as the destroyer, because without any scientific or religious dissimulation we perceive through his almost errorless interpretation of nature that he was the upbuilder of the modern age.
With his distinguished cousin, Francis Galton, Darwin becomes one of the great moralists of the twentieth century. We trust that the five well-founded chapters of Gamaliel Bradford’s most penetrating volume may be widely read, especially by those who through experience and training can never be led to think of Darwin in the light of a destroyer.
HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN