26 Darwin-Wallace Celebration. 



new doctrine which burst the enthraldom of the intellect 

 which the advocates of the argument from design had woven 

 around us. It gave a sense of freedom to all the people who 

 were thinking of these matters, and that sense of freedom 

 was very real and very vivid at the time. If a future 

 Auguste Comte arises who makes a calendar in which the 

 days are devoted to the memory of those who have been 

 the beneficent intellects of mankind, I feel sure that this 

 (Jay, the 1st of July, will not be the least brilliant. 



Sir E. RAY LANKESTEK, K.C.B., F.R.S., F.L.S., was the 

 next and last recipient of the medal : the President 

 said : 



Your work as a great original investigator in Comparative 

 Anatomy, Embryology, and Palaeontology, and as the 

 author of many standard works in Zoology and philosophical 

 Biology has been inspired throughout by the Evolution 

 idea, of which you are one of the most brilliant exponents. 



Among your own contributions to the theory, I should 

 like to refer to your treatment of the subject of Degeneration, 

 or Reduction, a phase of Evolution of which the importance 

 becomes more manifest with every investigation. Your 

 statement that "The hypothesis of Degeneration will be 

 found to render most valuable service in pointing out the 

 true relationships of animals " holds good just as fully for 

 plants. I am convinced that there is still too much 

 reluctance, at least on the botanical side, to make use of 

 this hypothesis, and that reduction has probably played a 

 far larger part in evolution than is yet realised. 



Your conception of homoplastic modification, leading to 

 similar organisation in distinct lines of descent, has proved 

 no less fertile, and the importance which you have attached 

 to the study of Bionomics, to use your own term, anticipated 

 the great development which the investigation of the con- 

 ditions of life has since shown, under Prof. Warming's name 

 of Ecology. 



Your more popular works have spread the knowledge of 

 E volution beyond the limits of scientific circles ; my own 



