he thought, make out everything.  The soul “itself by itself,” could tell all it wanted if it would be true to its sublimer isolation.  The greatest enjoyment possible to man was that which this philosophy promises its votaries—­the pleasure of being always right, and always reasoning—­without ever being bound to look at anything.  But our most ambitious schemes of philosophy now start quite differently.  Mr. Darwin begins:—­

“When on board H.M.S.  Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent.  These facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species—­that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers.  On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it.  After five years’ work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions which then seemed to me probable:  from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object.  I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.”

If he hopes finally to solve his great problem, it is by careful experiments in pigeon-fancying, and other sorts of artificial variety-making.  His hero is not a self-enclosed, excited philosopher, but “that most skilful breeder, Sir John Sebright, who used to say, with respect to pigeons, that he would produce any given feathers in three years, but it would take him six years to obtain a head and a beak”.  I am not saying that the new thought is better than the old; it is no business of mine to say anything about that; I only wish to bring home to the mind, as nothing but instances can bring it home, how matter-of-fact, how petty, as it would at first sight look, even our most ambitious science has become.

In the new communities which our emigrating habit now constantly creates, this prosaic turn of mind is intensified.  In the American mind and in the colonial mind there is, as contrasted with the old English mind, a literalness, a tendency to say, “The facts are so-and-so, whatever may be thought or fancied about them”.  We used before the civil war to say that the Americans worshipped the almighty dollar; we now know that they can scatter money almost recklessly when they will.  But what we meant was half right—­they worship visible value:  obvious, undeniable, intrusive result.  And in Australia and New Zealand the same turn comes uppermost.  It grows from the struggle with the wilderness.  Physical difficulty is the enemy of early communities, and an incessant conflict with it for generations leaves a mark of reality on the mind—­a painful mark almost to us, used to impalpable fears and the half-fanciful dangers of an old and complicated society.  The “new Englands” of all latitudes are bare-minded (if I may so say) as compared with the “old”.