XXIV 

 EULOGIUM ON CHAELES DAEWIN 1 



THE Council of the Linnean Society has honoured me with 

 the request that I would say some words regarding the life 

 and work of our illustrious member Charles Darwin, whose 

 name, it may be said with truth, is more widely known 

 throughout the civilised world than any other that has been 

 enrolled upon the list of Fellows of the Society. 



Darwin has, moreover, special claims for consideration 

 from us on such an occasion as this, inasmuch as a large and 

 very important portion of his work was first communicated to 

 the world by means of papers read at our meetings and 

 published in our Journal. 



Here, on the 1st of July 1858, was read the celebrated 

 essay " On the Variation of Organic Beings in a State of 

 Nature, on the Natural means of Selection, on the Comparison 

 of Domestic Eaces and True Species." 



Here also were first made known, in a succession of 

 memoirs, extending over many years, those remarkable investi- 

 gations into the structure and life-history of plants, "any one 

 of which, taken on its own merits " (I quote the words of one 

 of our leading authorities in this department of science), "would 

 alone have made the reputation of any ordinary botanist." 



Darwin's life and Darwin's work are, however, so familiar 

 to every one here, and have been so recently and so 

 exhaustively treated of, in every aspect in which they can be 

 viewed, that to attempt to say anything new upon them, or 

 even to clothe what is well-known in any original form, 

 would be for me a hopeless task. 



1 Centenary Meeting of the Linnean Society, 24th May 1888. 



