MR. BALFOUR. 



pursued the even tenor of the man whose business it 

 was to investigate the truths of nature and to state 

 fact as he saw fact, to proceed irrespective of all the storm 

 of indignation and of misplaced antagonism to which 

 his speculations at the moment inevitably led. That is 

 a great quality. It is a quality which few men of science 

 have possessed in equal measure. Most scientific discover- 

 ies are so remote from the knowledge and immediate 

 interest of uninstructed mankind that the man of science may 

 pursue his way tolerably secure of escaping abuse from any 

 but his scientific rivals. That was not Charles Darwin's 

 fortune. He, through no fault of his, and let me add through 

 no fault of the community to which he gave his dis- 

 coveries, inevitably produced general controversy, for those 

 discoveries attacked the conception which every man had 

 formed of the world in which he lived and of the race to 

 which he belonged. On the whole I think it is creditable to 

 everyone concerned that that controversy went on with so 

 little bitterness and so little misrepresentation. But there was 

 bitterness and there was misrepresentation, yet never did it 

 deflect for one instant, so far as I am aware, the strict 

 path of scientific rectitude and of admirable charity which 

 always characterised that great man. When we re- 

 member under what circumstances of ill health Darwin 

 pursued, decade after decade, these immortal investigations, I 

 think our admiration for his temper, for his moral character, 

 is augmented by a feeling of further admiration for the 

 heroism with which he fought against these untoward physical 

 conditions. Never did he lose his interest in his work, never 

 was he discouraged. He went on from discovery to discovery 

 and from truth to truth, unwearied and unfatigued, leaving 

 behind him the immortal reputation which we are here 

 to celebrate. I do not think that all the history of 

 science has produced a genius whose memory a great 

 University could more fitly celebrate, or one whose con- 

 tributions to knowledge, the representatives of other great 

 centres of learning would more gladly assemble to honour. 

 I have ventured, perhaps too boldly, to praise Cambridge 

 and those whom Cambridge has produced, but our guests 



