26 PROCEEDIIfGS OF THE 



" I have thus been enabled during the course of thirty years to 

 come into closest contact in many ways with British Science. 

 I treasure this good fortune so much the more, as the means 

 by which I have gained a great number of dear personal friends, 

 through whose intercourse and incitement my scientific labour 

 has been greatly advanced. 



" The near racial relations of the British and German mind, 

 especially the intimate phylogenetic connexion between the 

 universally dominant ' Anglo-Saxon ' race and the primeval 

 continental ' Palseo-Saxon ' race from Thuringia, to which I 

 myself belong, have daily assumed in my eyes more significant 

 form, during this continued scientific and personal intercourse. 

 There have hovered before me, as the highest human ideals, 

 those two great intellects, one of whom in the eighteenth, and 

 the other in the nineteenth century had climbed the highest 

 peaks of natural philosophy — Wolfgaug Groethe and Charles 

 Darwin. Upon the intimate relation between these two great 

 intellects of the Grermanic race, I have repeatedly laid stress. 



" In the history of human knowledge, the second half of the 

 nineteenth century will certainly be always honoured as one of 

 the most important periods ; the advances of our time in all 

 spheres of Natural Philosophy, as well as in their practical 

 application, are so prodigious that no earlier period in the history 

 of civilization can compare to it. 



" However highly we may value the discoveries of Physics and 

 Chemistry, of Astronomy and Geology, of Botany and Zoology, 

 above all in ray opinion stands the recognition of Moiiism : that 

 one great fundamental law of mechanical development which 

 dominates the whole universe, — that one continuous chain of 

 causation which surrounds the whole organic and inorganic 

 world. "What Newton's law of gravitation has proved for the 

 whole universe, Lyell's theory of Continuity has been acknow- 

 ledged to be for Geology, aud Darwin's theory of Descent for 

 Biology. 



" If the Linnean Society, through the award of its Gold Medal, 

 pronounces its high recogaition of my modest share in the 

 transmission of this great principle, I shall always be most 

 gratefully beholden to it. I shall hope to prove this best by 

 constantly endeavouring, for the remainder of my life, after the 

 model of those great heroes, ' rerum cognoscere causas ' ! " 



The obituary notices of deceased Fellows and Foreign Members 

 were then laid before the Meeting by the Senior Secretary. 



