«4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



by your authority, hand over the Medal to Mr. Sladen, on his 

 behalf. Unfortunately, Professor Haeckel is not here to receive 

 it himself, and we are denied the pleasure of meeting him, which 

 we had boped, perhaps, to have had. I therefore hand to 

 Mr. Sladen this Gold Medal for transmission to Professor Ernst 

 Heinrich Philip August Haeckel, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of 

 Zoology and Director of the Zoological Institute at the Uni- 

 versity of Jena. 



Mr. Sladen. — Mr. President and Gentlemen, Professor Haeckel 

 has done me the honour of asking me to receive this Medal on his 

 behalf. I regret that his academic duties in Jena prevent his being 

 present at this meeting, and I am still more sorry to say that the 

 after-effects of a serious attack of influenza would, irrespective 

 of his duties, have rendered it inadvisable for him to undertake 

 just now so long a journey. I shall have much pleasure. Sir, in 

 conveying to him the expression of your appreciation of his 

 scientific work, and I beg j)ermission to read an Address which 

 he has sent to me, as follows : — 



" Me. President and Gentlemen, 



" By your decision to bestow upon me your Gold Medal, 

 in acknowledgment of my scientific work, you have honoured 

 and gratified me exceedingly ; and I find it difficult to express 

 in a sufficient manner my hearty thanks. 



"It is true that my constant aim during a literary life of forty 

 years has been to advance, according to my ability. Biological 

 Science — which the Linnean Society fosters, — and especially 

 Zoology — and to bring its great problems nearer to monistic 

 solution. My talents, however, do not correspond to my aims, 

 and hence my actual attainments remain far behind my 

 endeavours. I fully recognized this fact on the 16th of February 

 last, on completion of my sixtieth year, when numerous marks of 

 honour — and among them some from Great Britain — fell to my lot. 



" I could not help remembering with thankfulness on that 

 occasion the many favourable circumstances which have enabled 

 me to take my share of the great biological work of the second 

 half of our century, and to attain some success therein. Among 

 these favourable ' conditions of scientific work,' I considered it 

 the most favourable that the commencement of my independent 

 work coincided with the grand reform of biological science, 

 which was inaugurated 35 years ago by the greatest naturalist of 

 the nineteenth century — Charles Darwin. I belonged at that 

 time to the few young naturalists who at once perceived the 

 far-reaching bearings of the ' Origin of Species,' and who 

 endeavoured to push on this great advance of the Development 

 Theory. When I began my academic life in Jena in 1861, I at 

 once availed myself of the theory of Descent as the basis of the 

 new Zoology ; and all my later work has been followed out on 

 this monistic basis. 



