1894 SPEECH AT THE ROYAL SOCIETY DINNER 345 



system of our thought and opinion, our most intimate 

 convictions. But I do not know, I do not think anybody 

 knows, whether the particular views which he held will 

 be hereafter fortified by the experience of the ages which 

 come after tis ; but of this thing I am perfectly certain, 

 that the present course of things has resulted from the 

 feeling of the smaller men who have followed him that 

 they are incompetent to bend the bow of Ulysses, and in 

 consequence many of them are seeking their salvation in 

 mere speculation. Those who wish to attain to some 

 clear and definite solution of the great problems which 

 Mr. Darwin was the first person to set before us in later 

 times must base themselves upon the facts which are stated 

 in his great work, and, still more, must pursue their 

 inquiries by the methods of which he was so brilliant an 

 exemplar throughout the whole of his life. You must 

 have his sagacity, his untiring search after the knowledge 

 of fact, his readiness always to give up a preconceived 

 opinion to that which was demonstrably true, before you 

 can hope to carry his doctrines to their ultimate issue ; 

 and whether the particular form in which he has put 

 them before us may be such as is finally destined to survive 

 or not is more, I venture to think, than anybody is capable 

 at this present moment of saying. But this one thing is 

 perfectly certain — that it is only by pursuing his methods, 

 by that wonderful single-mindedness, devotion to truth, 

 readiness to sacrifice all things for the advance of definite 

 knowledge, that we can hope to come any nearer than we 

 are at present to the truths which he struggled to attain. 



To Sir J. D. Hooker 



HoDESLEA, Eastbourne, 

 Dec. 4, 1894. 



Mt dear old Man — See the respect I have for your 

 six years' seniority ! I wished you had been at the 



