填空题
【F1】
It was this rarest and greatest of endowments which kept his vivid
imagination and great speculative powers within due bounds; which compelled him to undertake the prodigious labors of original investigation and of reading, upon which his published works are based; which made him accept criticisms and suggestions from anybody and everybody, not only without impatience, but with expressions of gratitude sometimes almost comically in excess of their value, 【F2】
which led him to allow neither himself not others to be deceived by phrases and to spare neither time nor pains in order to obtain clear and distinct ideas upon every topic with which he occupied himself.
One could not converse with Darwin without being reminded of Socrates. There was the same desire to find some one wiser than himself; the same belief in the sovereignty of reason; the same ready humor; the same sympathetic interest in all the ways and works of men. 【F3】
But instead of turning away from the problems of Nature as hopelessly insoluble: our modern philosopher devoted his whole life to attacking them in the spirit of Heraclitus and of Democritus. with results which are the substance of which their speculations were anticipatory shadows.
None have fought better, and none have been more fortunate, than Charles Darwin. 【F4】
He found a great truth trodden underfoot, reviled by bigots, and ridiculed by all the world: he lived long enough to see it. chiefly by his own efforts, irrefragably. established in science, inseparably incorporated with the common thoughts of me. and only hated and feared by those who would revile, but dare not.
What shall a man desire than this? Once more the image of Socrates rises unbidden, and the noble peroration of the "Apology" rings in our ears as if it were Charles Darwin"s farewell:
"The hour of departure has arrive, and we go our ways—I to die and you to live. Which is the better, God only knows."