271 THE SPREAD OP EVOLUTION. [ch. xiv. 



copy, do lend it. It shows well that a scientific man had 

 better be trampled in dirt than squabble. 



In the following year (1864) he received the greatest 

 honour which a scientific man can receive in this country, 

 the Copley Medal of the Eoyal Society. It is presented at 

 the Anniversary Meeting on St. Andrew's Day (Nov. 30), 

 the medalist being usually present to receive it, but this the 

 state of my father's health prevented. He wrote to Mr. 

 Fox : 



" I was glad to see your hand-writing. The Copley, 

 being open to all sciences and all the world, is reckoned a 

 great honour ; but excepting from several kind letters, such 

 things make little difference to me. It shows, however, 

 that Natural Selection is making some progress in this 

 country, and that pleases me. The subject, however, is safe 

 in foreign lands." 



The presentation of the Copley Medal is of interest in 

 connection with what has gone before, inasmuch as it led to 

 Sir C. Lyell making in his after-dinner speech, a " confes- 

 sion of faith as to the Origin." He wrote to my father 

 {Life of Sir C. Lyell, vol. ii. p. 384), "I said I had been 

 forced to give up my old faith without thoroughly seeing 

 my way to a new one. But I think you would have been 

 satisfied with the length I went." 



Lyell's acceptance of Evolution was made public in the 

 tenth edition of the Principles, published in 1867 and 1868. 

 It was a sign of improvement, " a great triumph," as my 

 father called it, that an evolutionary article by Wallace, 

 dealing with Lyell's book, should have appeared in the 

 Quarterly Review (April, 1869). Mr. Wallace wrote: 



which the quarrels of scientific men are satirised. Mr. John Bull gives evi- 

 dence that 



"The whole neighbourhood was unsettled by their disputes; Huxley 

 quarrelled with Owen, Owen with Darwin, Lyell with Owen, Falconer and 

 Prestwich with Lyell, and Gray the menagerie man with everybody. He 

 had pleasure, however, in stating that Darwin was the quietest of the set. 

 They were always picking bones with each other and fighting over their 

 gains. If either* of the gravel sifters or stone breakers found anything, he 

 was obliged to conceal it immediately, or one of the old bone collectors would 

 be sure to appropriate it first and deny the theft afterwards, and the conse- 

 quent wrangling and disputes were as endless as they were wearisome. 



" Lord Mayor. Probably the clergyman of the parish might exert some 

 influence over them? 



" The gentleman smiled, shook his head, and stated that he regretted to 

 say that no class of men paid so little attention to the opinions of the clergy 

 as' that to which these unhappy men belonged." 



