Darwin-Wallace Celebration. 59 



Botanists. 



Hooker. 

 Watson. 

 Thwaites. 



And of this short list it is remarkable that, after fifty years, 

 three are here to-day. 



Authority then was mainly on one side, but truth was on 

 the other : and when authority and truth differ, in the long 

 run truth will prevail over authority. 



It is, however, only fair to remember that on Naturalists 

 generally the new theory burst with startling abruptness like 

 a " bolt from the blue." Lyell, Hooker, Huxley and I, on 

 the contrary, had been in constant communication with 

 Darwin, and had had time to consider and weigh the 

 argument. 



Yet really it seems wonderful now that great Naturalists 

 should have taken so long to make up their minds. As 

 Huxley said, he had puzzled over the question and found no 

 answer, but when the ' Origin ' appeared he reproached 

 himself " with dulness for being perplexed by such an enquiry. 

 My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central 

 idea of the ; Origin ' was, ' How extremely stupid not to 

 have thought of that ! ' " 



A few years, however, brought conviction, and writing in 

 1878 Mr. Darwin was able to say that there was almost 

 complete unanimity among Naturalists about the truth of 

 evolution. 



As regards the Joint Memoir and the ' Origin of Species/ no 

 doubt the attacks of Theologians were mainly due to the 

 belief, still widely entertained, that Evolution was incom- 

 patible with religion. Darwin, himself, never held this 

 view. In his speech on the 22nd June at the Pan-Anglican 

 Synod, Mr. Balfour, while expressing the opinion that the 

 argument from design, " though I should hesitate to say it was 

 worthless, had lost much of its old efficacy in the stress of 

 recent biological discoveries," was of the same opinion. 



