and it has convinced not a few able men. No one could have written
it without having some power of reasoning. I have a fair share of
invention, and of common sense or judgment, such as every fairly
successful lawyer or doctor must have, but not, I believe, in any higher
degree.

On the favourable side of the balance, I think that I am superior to the
common run of men in noticing things which easily escape attention, and
in observing them carefully. My industry has been nearly as great as it
could have been in the observation and collection of facts. What is far
more important, my love of natural science has been steady and ardent.

This pure love has, however, been much aided by the ambition to be
esteemed by my fellow naturalists. From my early youth I have had the
strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed,--that is,
to group all facts under some general laws. These causes combined have
given me the patience to reflect or ponder for any number of years over
any unexplained problem. As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow
blindly the lead of other men. I have steadily endeavoured to keep my
mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I
cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown
to be opposed to it. Indeed, I have had no choice but to act in this
manner, for with the exception of the Coral Reefs, I cannot remember a
single first-formed hypothesis which had not after a time to be given
up or greatly modified. This has naturally led me to distrust greatly
deductive reasoning in the mixed sciences. On the other hand, I am not
very sceptical,--a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the
progress of science. A good deal of scepticism in a scientific man is
advisable to avoid much loss of time, but I have met with not a few
men, who, I feel sure, have often thus been deterred from experiment
or observations, which would have proved directly or indirectly
serviceable.

In illustration, I will give the oddest case which I have known. A
gentleman (who, as I afterwards heard, is a good local botanist) wrote
to me from the Eastern counties that the seed or beans of the common
field-bean had this year everywhere grown on the wrong side of the pod.
I wrote back, asking for further information, as I did not understand
what was meant; but I did not receive any answer for a very long time.
I then saw in two newspapers, one published in Kent a