ESTIMATE OF DARWIN 165 



which, as generation after generation of students enter yonder 

 door, they shall be reminded of the ideal according to which 

 they must shape their lives, if they would turn to the best account 

 the opportunities offered by the great institution under your 

 charge." 



An allusion to Darwin's scientific position in England 

 is also contained in a letter to the Bishop of Ripon (dated 

 June 16, 1887 : — 



" Of deceased Englishmen who belong to the first half of the 

 Victorian epoch, I should say that Faraday, Lyell, and Darwin 

 had exerted the greatest influence, and all three were models of the 

 highest and best class of physical philosophers " (Life, ii, p. 162). 



Huxley was awarded the Darwin Medal in 1894, and 

 in his eloquent speech delivered at the Anniversary 

 dinner of the Society, on St. Andrew's Day, gave an 

 account of his long association with Darwin, and the part 

 he played in defending and promulgating Darwinism. 

 The speech included the following passage, which sum- 

 marizes the characteristics and methods of Darwin in a 

 way it would be difficult to surpass : — 



" 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 wonder- 

 ful single-mindedness, devotion to truth, readiness to sacrifice all 

 things for the advance of definite knowledge, that we can hope 



