36 Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 



some greater generalisation which may include them both.* 

 There is this in common between them, that each is based on 

 a fundamental assumption which it accepts from experience 

 and leaves unexplained. Newton started from gravitation 

 as Darwin did from variation. And if the latter is less 

 obvious than the former, its recognition is at least as old as 

 Lucretius, 



Dr. Francis Darwin has told us that apart from the 

 ordinary influences of University life, the mere routine of 

 academic study did little if anything for his father. Dr. 

 Wallace is one whom many Universities have delighted to 

 honour, yet has been the alumnus of none. Those, however, 

 are mistaken who think that the instruction of students is 

 the sole purpose of a University. Its true function, as I 

 have said, lies far deeper. Both Darwin and Wallace owed 

 to Cambridge the first impulse to their thoughts. For both 

 have told us in almost identical terms that they found it in 

 Malthus. A fellow of a Cambridge College whose life was 

 uneventful, his " Essay on Population " was received with a 

 storm of execration. Yet we now know that it simply 



* [NOTE] Since this was written the remarkable Obituary Notice of 

 Lord Kelvin prepared for the Royal Society by Professor Larrnor has 

 come into my hands. He contrasts the work of Lord Kelvin with that 

 of Darwin and Wallace. The first " established the cardinal principle of 

 inanimate cosmic evolution, as effected through the degradation of energy, 

 which determines the fate of worlds, and is the complement of the 

 principle of evolution in organic life which came to light at about the 

 same time " (p. Ixxv). It is certainly a striking circumstance that almost 

 simultaneously the study of inanimate and animate nature should have 

 been revolutionised by the discovery of a new controlling principle in 

 each. In another passage Professor Larmor points out that between 

 them " there is something in common ; the automatic evolution towards 

 improved adaptation, in this case with no limit or equilibrium yet in 

 sight, is attained at the cost of compensating dissipation, namely the 

 destruction of the individuals that happen to be ill-adapted, even though 

 in other respects superior" (p. xxxvi). I may hazard an even closer 

 analogy. Animate nature by selective action escapes the final equilibrium 

 which is ' death.' Inanimate nature would equally escape it if Maxwell's 

 * Sorting demons ' were available. 



