OLD ERRORS REPEATED 79 



late Professor H. N. Moseley, Mr. Geoffrey 

 Smith, Mr. R. Bourne, Mr. A. F. Coventry, and 

 Mr. E. P. Poulton acted as stewards. 



Special distinction was conferred upon the 

 celebration by the deeply interesting speeches 

 of Sir George Darwin and Mr. Francis Darwin. 

 An address by the present writer was based upon 

 material contained in the two previous addresses, 

 a special point being made of the true interpreta- 

 tion to be placed upon those changes in Darwin's 

 mind, described on pp. 59, 60, which have been 

 so widely and unfortunately misunderstood. It 

 was to the speaker a supreme pleasure to find 

 that the interpretation was entirely accepted by 

 Darwin's sons, and to hear it brought forward 

 in Mr. William Darwin's speech at the Cambridge 

 banquet on June 23rd, a speech which charmed 

 and delighted every one who had the privilege 

 of listening to it. 



There was good and sufficient reason for direct- 

 ing special attention to this point; for on the 

 previous day (Feb. 11) the first and principal 

 article in the Literary Supplement of the Times, 

 entitled Literature and Science, was devoted to 

 this very subject, repeated the old errors and 

 spoke of them as unquestioned facts. The author 

 referred to 



'The unchallenged assumption, so widespread in these 

 days, that science is not truly science unless it is free from 

 all suspicion of poetic exaltation, and that poetry is a place 

 of dreams and divinations which are chilled by the touch of 

 science.' 



