154 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. 



In June he was in Oxford receiving the 

 honorary degree of D.C.L. 



At this date the World had already begun to 

 give pen-portraits of distinguished persons, and 

 the following, which appeared on August 4, well 

 and justly indicates the verdict of his contem- 

 poraries on Sir John and on the work which he 

 had already accomplished : 



Sir John Lubbock is a man of universal mind. His 

 intelligence and his occupations embrace everything 

 that is upon the earth. Firmly persuaded of the superi- 

 ority of bees, wasps and ants to men and women though 

 he be, he has not disdained to write on the origin of 

 civilisation and the primitive condition of man, as well 

 as on the origin and metamorphoses of insects. More 

 than this, he has even busied himself with men, not only 

 in this condition of aboriginal wildness, but as engaged 

 in the complex operations of modern commerce. He 

 has written treatises on banking and finance, and has 

 simplified, if he has not invented, many of the proceed- 

 ings of the Clearing House. He has strolled in to 

 Parliament, and has made more than one clever and 

 admirable speech on the incomes of the rich and the 

 education of the poor ; on £. s. d. and on the three R's. 

 If Mr. Layard could be called the member for Nineveh, 

 one might appropriately christen Sir John Lubbock 

 the member for Stonehenge. . . . Sir John Lubbock is, 

 of course officially placed with the Liberals ; but if he 

 can be called a politician at all, which is doubtful, he is 

 absolutely void of political partisanship. Perhaps it is 

 here that we may see most clearly the influence of his 

 scientific studies. He has devoted so much time and 

 intellectual energy to the investigations of scientific 

 problems, and to the impartial sifting of scientific 

 evidence, that he can scarcely be expected to muster 

 much enthusiasm or to pronounce a categorical judgment 

 on the positive merits of the bungling tactics of political 

 rivals. He has come to the conclusion that there are 

 certain truths clearly ascertainable in finance, and that 

 they should be enforced ; he is not less clear that the 

 condition of the people, moral, social, and mental, should 



