DARWIN'S THEORY UNSHAKEN 37 



Charles Lyell, had a few years earlier entered at Exeter 

 College, and by happy chance fallen under the influence 

 of the enthusiastic Buckland, the University reader in 

 geology and a Canon of Christ Church. The wise 

 freedom of study permitted and provided for in those 

 long-passed days by Oxford and Cambridge is what has 

 given the right to claim the discovery, if not the making, 

 of Lyell to the one and of Darwin to the other. 



" Darwin's love of living nature and of the country life 

 are especially English characteristics ; so, too, I venture 

 to think, are the unflinching determination and simple 

 courage I may even say the audacity with which he 

 acquired, after he had left the University, the wide range 

 of detailed knowledge in various branches of science 

 which he found necessary in order to deal with the 

 problem of the origin of the species of plants and animals, 

 the investigation of which became his passion. 



" The unselfish generosity and delicacy of feeling which 

 marked Darwin's relations with a younger naturalist, 

 Alfred Russel Wallace, are known to all. I cannot let 

 this occasion pass without citing those words of his which 

 tell us most clearly what manner of man he was and add 

 to his splendid achievements as an intellectual force a 

 light and a beauty of which every Englishman must be 

 proud. When in old age he surveyed his life's work he 

 wrote : ' I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily 

 following and devoting my life to science.' 



" To have desired to act ' rightly,' and to be able to 

 think of success in life as measured by the fulfilment of 

 that desire, is the indication and warrant of true great- 

 ness of character. We Englishmen have ever loved to 

 recognise this noble kind of devotion in our national 

 heroes." 



