DARWIN CELEBRATION. 



"The King" was proposed by the CHANCELLOR (Lord 

 Rayleigh). 



The Right Hon. A. J. BALFOUR* said : Chancellor, your 

 Excellencies, my Lords, and Gentlemen, I have been 

 requested, by those who are responsible for the organisa- 

 tion of this celebration, to take that part in it which 

 has been announced in no uncertain tone. I am 

 conscious of but two qualifications which I possess for 

 the task. The one is the deepest personal affection and the 

 most unstinted admiration for the subject with which I 

 am asked to deal ; the second is that I yield to no man 

 in my loyal devotion to the University of which Charles 

 Darwin was one of the greatest ornaments. I think it may 

 w T ell thrill the minds of every son of Cambridge to reflect on 

 the part which his University has played in leading great 

 movements, those great cosmic movements whose effects are 

 never obliterated by the progress of science, or the develop- 

 ment of discovery, but which remain as perpetual landmarks 

 in the intellectual history of mankind. This day and on 

 preceding days we are concerned with Charles Darwin. 

 Charles Darwin, though one of the greatest of men of 

 science the world has seen, has, even in Cambridge, great 

 rivals. Will it be erroneous to say that much of the best 

 scientific thought of the i8th century was devoted to develop- 

 ing those great mechanical ideas which the world owes to 

 Newton ? During that century men largely spent their 

 time in developing ideas the origin of which we can 

 with perfect certainty trace to the greatest ornament of 



NOTE. * Mr. Balfour's attention was called to one or two obvious slips in the 

 reporting of his remarks, but the speech as a whole has not been 

 revised by him. 



