90 DARWIN AND CAMBRIDGE 



Commission the establishment of a permanent 

 lectureship for the exposure of the fallacies of 

 Darwinism. 



Charles Darwin was offered the honorary degree 

 of D.C.L. by Lord Salisbury, on his installation as 

 Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1870. 

 After the lapse of nearly forty years there can be 

 no harm in the candid admission that Lord 

 Salisbury's list was opposed, although unsuc- 

 cessfully, in the Hebdomadal Council. There is 

 no evidence that any special exception was taken 

 to the name of Darwin, but certain members 

 of Council objected to the high proportion of 

 scientific men. The opposition was unsuccessful, 

 the Chancellor's list was passed as a whole, and 

 became the list of the Council ; but, unfortunately 

 for Oxford, Darwin's health prevented him from 

 accepting the degree. Cambridge was happier, 

 and Darwin became an honorary LL.D. of his 

 own University in 1877. 



And now there is one other subject to which I 

 desire to allude before proposing the toast. What 

 would we give to know as much about the life of 

 Shakespeare and of Newton as we know about 

 the life of Darwin ? That we do happily possess 

 a wide and detailed knowledge of the life of this 

 great man we owe to one of his sons, who, with 

 a fine and delicate sense of pathos as well as 

 performance, has done his work, who has hurried 

 in no way but has made every step secure, so that 

 we can with the utmost confidence receive the 



