470 M. Je Qiiatrefages on Charles Darwin. 



tioiivS procured him, from the Geological Society of London, 

 tlie Wollaston Medal, the highest recompense at the disposal 

 of that Society*. 



Subsequently botany especially attracted Darwin's attention 

 — not descriptive botany, but rather that part of the science 

 which deals with obscure and little- known phenomena, be- 

 longing especially to physiology. We know wliat import- 

 ance the most highly-qualiiied naturalists attach to his obser- 

 vations and experiments upon polymorpliism, on the inter- 

 crossing of diilerent forms of the same species, on climbing 

 plants, on the fertilization of orchids, &c. The eminent 

 botanist Hooker, in a public discourse, declared that the 

 physiological discoveries of Darwin were the finest that liad 

 been made for ten years. Our illustrious fellow-member M. 

 de Candolle has never hidden his admiration for the English 

 naturalist ; and in a lettei', which I could find if necessary, he 

 wrote to me, with that extreme modesty which \xq all know 

 him to possess, nearly in the following words : — " It is not I, 

 it is Darwin that the Academy should have named as its 

 foreign associate." 



And yet it is not this group of works, all precise, all cor- 

 rect, all bringing to science results thenceforward acquired, 

 which have gained for Darwin his immense reputation and 

 his widespread popularity. It was his theory of the Origin 

 of Species that taught the whole world, tlie ignorant as well as 

 the learned, the name of the illustrious Englishman. It is 

 because this theory seemed to respond to one of the most vivid 

 aspirations, and, I do not hesitate to say, one of the noblest 

 desires of the human mind; it is because it seemed to explain 

 the world of organized beings, just as mathematics, astronomy, 

 geology, and physics have explained the world of inorganic 

 bodies. AVhat DarAvin attempted was to refer to the action of 

 second causes alone the marvellous group of phenomena 

 studied by the botanists and the zoologists ; he endeavoured 

 to explain their genesis and evolution, just as the astronomers 

 and geologists have taught us how our globe originated, and 

 how its surface has become what we see it. 



Idiere is nothing but what is perfectly legitimate in this 

 great effort of a great mind ; and it cannot be but that Dar- 

 win's conception has in it something serious as well as seduc- 

 tive to enable it to carry away not only the multitude who 

 take things on credit, and too often under the influence of their 

 passions, but also such men as Hooker, Huxley, Vogt, Lub- 

 bock, Brandt, Philippi, Hilckel, Lyell, and so many others. 



The fact is that Darwin's starting-point is unassailable. No 



■* [It was, at the time, not merely the highest, but the oiiJij hciiour tlie 

 Siicii'tv hail t(i bi'stuw. j 



