58 Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 



been very sadly. I often wish he had something to do. He 

 moons about in the garden, and I have seen him stand doing 

 nothing before a flower for ten minutes at a time. If he only 

 had something to do I really believe he would be better." 



The Joint Memoir is the work which we have met to-day 

 specially to commemorate, but the other labours of our 

 illustrious countrymen fully justify the highest honours which 

 any country could confer. 



When Mr. Darwin received the Copley Medal, Sir C. Lyell 

 was one of the speakers at the Royal Society dinner. One 

 sentence in LyelFs speech impressed me so much that 

 though it was fifty years ago I still have it ringing in my 

 ears. He said : " When I was a young man propounding 

 what seemed revolutionary ideas in Geology, I complained 

 on one occasion to Mr. Darwin that the leaders in Science 

 adhered so tenaciously to the old views : and Mr. Darwin 

 replied, ' Well, let this be a lesson to you, and when you in 

 your turn are old, remember that you keep your mind open 

 to receive the new ideas which will assuredly come.' " " This," 

 said Sir Charles Lyell, " I have taken to heart, but little did 

 I think that Darwin himself would start the revolutionary 

 ideas as to which I was to keep an open mind." 



It is difficult for the present generation to realise the 

 astonishment and indignation with which principles pro- 

 mulgated in the Joint Memoir and in the ' Origin of Species,' 

 by which it was succeeded, were received. As Huxley 

 remarked years ago, it seemed even then like a dream ! 



"I do not," said Huxley, " call to mind among the Biologists 

 more than Asa Gray, who fought the battle so splendidly in 

 the United States ; Hooker, who was no less vigorous here ; 

 Sir John Lubbock and myself. Wallace was far away in 

 the Malay Archipelago." 



Huxley and Hooker were Darwin's two towers of strength 

 in this country. 



Mr. Darwin himself made (March 1860) the following 

 classified list of those who agreed with him ; I omit those who 

 only did so partially : 



