68 rUOCEEDINGS OF THE 



Here, on the 1st of July 185S, was read the celebrated essay 

 " 0)1 the Variatiou of Organic Beings in a State of Nature, on 

 the Nat\iral means of Selection, on the Comparison of Domestic 

 Kaces and True Species." 



Here also were iii'st made Icuowu, in a succession of memoirs, 

 extending over many years, tliose remarkable investigations into 

 the structure and lite-liistory of plants, " any one of Avhich, taken 

 on its own merits " (I quote the words of one of our leading 

 authorities in this department of science), "would alone have 

 made the reputation of any ordinary botanist." 



Darwin's life and Darwin's work are, however, so familiar to 

 every one here, and have been so recently and so exhaustively 

 treated of, in every asj^ect in which they can be viewed, that to 

 attempt to say anything new upon them, or even to clothe what is 

 well known in any original form, would be for me a hopeless task. 



The brevity with which I will speak will therefore be not a 

 measure of our ap])reciation of the .subject or of the man, but of 

 a conviction that few words are needed to express what we all 

 know and all feel. 



The recently publi.shed ' Life and Letters ' has brought before 

 a wide circle of readers a most vivid presentiment of what 

 Darwin really was. 



A character so simple, so transparent, so unaffected, duly 

 recognizing its own strength, and at the same time fully con- 

 scious of its own imperfections, a life so singularly consistent, so 

 steadily uniform throughout in its aims, and so undeviatingly 

 honest to all its convictions : such a character and snch a life, 

 already well known to his intimate friends, is now before the 

 whole world revealed, as one may say, to its very depths. 



Nothing more of any importance, either of character or life, 

 will ever be known. Any additional detail of incident or adven- 

 ture tliat can ever be brought to light, any further publication of 

 his voluminous correspondence, would only till in little vacuities 

 that may be left in the picture, but will never alter the outlines, 

 or the colour, or the tone. The picture, as already drawn in that 

 book, will remain, substantially, the same, for it is that of the man 

 himself, and, as I have said, of a man singularly free from the 

 com])lexities and contradictions which make up the composite 

 chai'acter of many whose names have risen conspicuous above 

 those of their fellow men. To the admirable qualities of his 

 domestic life, his modesty, his graciousness, his geniality, his 

 generous appreciation of the work and opinions of otliers, justice 

 has been fully rendered, even by the least sympathetic critics of 

 his scientific work. One of the most recent of these is con- 

 strained to say, " To know Darwin w\as to feel attracted to him, to 

 know much of him was to love him." 



It concerns us here to speak rather of the one great charac- 

 teristic which, throughout the whole of his lengthened career, 

 dominated all others, and made him what he was, — the consuming, 



