He has been all-powerful in impressing some grand moral truths on
the minds of men. On the other hand, his views about slavery
were revolting. In his eyes might was right. His mind seemed to
me a very narrow one; even if all branches of science, which he
despised, are excluded. It is astonishing to me that Kingsley
should have spoken of him as a man well fitted to advance
science. He laughed to scorn the idea that a mathematician, such
as Whewell, could judge, as I maintained he could, of Goethe's
views on light. He thought it a most ridiculous thing that any
one should care whether a glacier moved a little quicker or a
little slower, or moved at all. As far as I could judge, I never
met a man with a mind so ill adapted for scientific research.

Whilst living in London, I attended as regularly as I could the
meetings of several scientific societies, and acted as secretary
to the Geological Society. But such attendance, and ordinary
society, suited my health so badly that we resolved to live in
the country, which we both preferred and have never repented of.

RESIDENCE AT DOWN FROM SEPTEMBER 14, 1842, TO THE PRESENT TIME,
1876.

After several fruitless searches in Surrey and elsewhere, we
found this house and purchased it. I was pleased with the
diversified appearance of vegetation proper to a chalk district,
and so unlike what I had been accustomed to in the Midland
counties; and still more pleased with the extreme quietness and
rusticity of the place. It is not, however, quite so retired a
place as a writer in a German periodical makes it, who says that
my house can be approached only by a mule-track! Our fixing