10 Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 



and external conditions that led Darwin and myself to an 

 identical conception, also serves to explain why none of our 

 precursors or contemporaries hit upon what is really so very 

 simple a solution of the great problem. Such evolutionists 

 as Robert Chambers, Herbert Spencer, and Huxley, though 

 of great intellect, wide knowledge, and immense power of 

 work, had none of them the special turn of mind that makes 

 the collector and the species-man, while they all as well as 

 the equally great thinker on similar lines, Sir Charles Lyell 

 became in early life immersed in different lines of research 

 which engaged their chief attention. 



Neither did the actual precursors of Darwin in the state- 

 ment of the principle Wells, Matthews or Prichard possess 

 any adequate knowledge of the class of facts above referred 

 to, or sufficient antecedent interest in the problem itself, 

 which were both needed in order to perceive the application 

 of the principle to the mode of development of the varied 

 forms of life. 



And now, to recur to my own position, I may be allowed 

 to make a final remark. I have long since come to see that 

 no one deserves either praise or blame for the ideas that come 

 to him, but only for the actions resulting therefrom. Ideas 

 and beliefs are certainly not voluntary acts. They come to 

 us we hardly know how or whence, and once they have got 

 possession of us we cannot reject or change them at will. It 

 is for the common good that the promulgation of ideas should 

 be free uninfluenced by either praise or blame, reward or 

 punishment. 



But the actions which result from our ideas may properly 

 be so treated, because it is only by patient thought and work,, 

 that new ideas, if good and true, become adopted and utilised ; 

 while, if untrue or if not adequately presented to the world, 

 they are rejected or forgotten. 



I therefore accept the crowning honour you have conferred 

 on me to-day, not for the happy chance through which I 

 became an independent originator of the doctrine of " sur- 

 vival of the fittest," but, as a too liberal recognition by you 

 of the moderate amount of time and work I have given to- 



