losophy than Hegel? Who towered higher than
Darwin in natural science? Yet in one of the best German reviews[1]
the following words of a young German biologist[2] are quoted, and not
without a certain approval: "Darwinism belongs now to history, like
that other _curiosum_ of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both
are variations on the theme, How can a generation be led by the nose?
and they are not calculated to raise our departing century in the eyes
of later generations."

[1] _Deutsche Rundschau_, Feb., 1900, p. 249.

[2] Driesch, _Biologisches Centralblatt_, 1896, p. 335.

If I was afraid of anything, it was not so much the severity of future
judges, as the extreme kindness and leniency which distinguish most
biographies in our days. It is true, it would not be easy for those
who have hereafter to report on our labours to discover the red
thread that runs through all of them from our first stammerings to our
latest murmurings. It might be said that in my own case the thread
that connects all my labours is very visible, namely, the thread that
connects the origin of thought and languages with the origin of
mythology and religion. Everything I have done was, no doubt,
subordinate to these four great problems, but to lay bare the
connecting links between what I have written and what I wanted to
write and never found time to write, is by no means easy, not even for
the author himself. Besides, what author has ever said the last word
he wanted to say, and who has not had to close his eyes before he
could write Finis to his work? There are many things still which I
should like to say, but I am getting tired, and others will say them
much better than I could, and will no doubt carry on the work where I
had to leave it unfinished. We owe much to others, and we have to
leave much to others. For throwing light on such points an
autobiography is, no doubt, better adapted than any biography written
by a stranger, if only we can at the same time completely forget that
the man who is described is the same as the man who describes.

"Friends," as Professor Jowett said, "always think it necessary
(except Boswell, that great genius) to tell lies about their deceased
friend; they leave out all his faults lest the public should
exaggerate them. But we want to know his faults,--hat is probably
the most interesting part of him."

Jowett knew quite well, and he did not hesitate to say so, that to do
much good in this world,