DR. ARRHENIUS. 



attempts made at the beginning of the igth century by many 

 scientific men, amongst whom the name of Charles Darwin's 

 grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, may be recalled, were far 

 from sufficient. The epoch-making work was accomplished 

 by Charles Darwin, who with an unrivalled patience and 

 diligence, as well as a rare impartiality during nearly 30 

 years, collected and sifted the enormous material upon which 

 was based his masterly work, " The Origin of Species." 

 It must be said that the time was ripe for the triumph of 

 the conception of evolution, as was clearly indicated by the 

 simultaneous work of Wallace on biology, and by the 

 publication of Herbert Spencer's philosophical investigations. 

 Charles Darwin was also immediately followed by enthusiastic 

 and prominent adherents, such as Huxley and Haeckel 

 who propagated and worked out the new doctrine. This 

 rapid success also caused a strong reaction from the side 

 of the representatives of the old finalistic ideas, grown strong 

 through centuries. The battle fought between the two parties 

 carried the new ideas into common life far from the scientist's 

 and the philosopher's study. During the last decade of his 

 life Darwin had the good fortune to see his ideas brought to 

 definite victory and generally accepted, not only in the vast 

 domain of biology, which has been referred to so eloquently 

 this morning, but even by scientists in general, and by 

 enlightened public opinion. Charles Darwin had a clear con- 

 ception of the far-reaching importance of his ideas. He 

 applied them in elaborate investigations concerning the de- 

 velopment of the intellectual and reflective faculties, to the 

 formation of primitive social ideas amongst animals and me,n ; 

 to the genesis of the most elementary moral and religious 

 conceptions, as well as to the fundamental problems of 

 anthropology. The more these various questions have been 

 discussed the more the doctrine of evolution has grown in 

 strength, and the greater has been the extent to which science 

 has been brought under its beneficent influence. Now-a-days 

 there is hardly a science which has not been affected by, and in 

 many cases thoroughly permeated by it. The sociological and 

 statistical sciences now rest on an evolutional basis. History, 

 and especially the history of culture, has found through it new 



