Sea on the shoulders of our youth; he has become an obsession to the critic, a weapon to the pedant, a nuisance to the man of genius." If we substitute 'popularizer' for 'critic,' Harris' sentence will apply to Darwin without further modification. There is a popular misconception that a great and successful scientist must of necessity be a man of great genius; nothing of the sort is true. Take the average "authority" away from his specialty, and he is a very commonplace individual; take him with it, and he is often little more than a remarkably durable and precise human machine.
Neither biographers nor critics have shown us any good reasons for considering Charles Darwin an exceptionally great man. He was a highly successful scientist, but at the same time he was aided to success by the condition of science during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and his personal fortune. In this connection it will be worth our while to examine the opinions of Carlyle, as reported by Frank Harris. The two were discussing notables of the century, and Harris brought up the name of Darwin. Carlyle described the two brothers as "solid, healthy[1] men, not greatly gifted, but honest and careful and hardworking * * *" and speaking of a conversation with Charles Darwin after his return from the "Beagle" voyage, said: "I saw in him then qualities I had hardly done justice to before: a patient clear-mindedness, fairness too,
- ↑ This was not true of the naturalist in later life, when he was for years a semi-invalid.
