NAIOCRE 
I21 
THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1885 
THE DARWIN MEMORIAL 
T is not often that the unveiling of a statue is attended 
with an interest at all comparable with that which 
characterised this ceremony as performed last Tuesday 
in the Great Hall of the Natural History Museum. If 
the greatness of a man is to be estimated by the measure 
in which he has influenced the thoughts of men it is 
scarcely open to question that the greatest man of our 
century is Charles Darwin. As Prof. Huxley remarked 
in the course of his singularly judicious and well-balanced 
address, Mr. Darwin’s work has not only reconstructed 
the science of biology, but has spread with an organising 
influence through almost every department of philosophi- 
cal thought. Yet it was not merely the greatness of the 
naturalist which invested the proceedings in the Natural 
History Museum with an interest so unique. It was 
known to the whole assembly that the man whom they 
delighted to honour was one whose moral nature had 
been cast in the same lines of simple grandeur as those 
which belonged to his intellectual nature. It therefore 
only needed a passing allusion from Prof. Huxley to 
enable the whole assembly to reflect that it was due as 
much to massiveness of character as to massiveness of 
work that within three years of his death Mr. Darwin’s 
name should constitute a new centre of gravity in 
every system of thought. And it was this reflection 
which gave to the ceremony so unusual a measure 
of interest. Around the statue were congregated the 
most representative men of every branch of culture, 
from the Prince of Wales and the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, to the opposite extremes of Radicalism and free- 
thought. Indeed, it is not too much to say that there can 
scarcely ever have been an occasion on which so many 
illustrious men of opposite ways of thinking have met to 
express a common agreement upon a man to whom they | 
have felt that honouris due. The international memorial 
could not in any nation have found a more worthy site 
than the one in which it has been placed ; but if anything 
could have added to the “solemn gladness” with which 
the personal friends of Mr. Darwin witnessed the pre- 
sentation of this memorial, it must have been the evidence 
which the assembly yielded that among the innumerable 
differences of opinion which it represented, his memory 
must henceforth be always and universally regarded as a 
changeless monument of all that is greatest in human 
nature, as well as of all that is greatest in human 
achievement. 
Concerning the statue itself, we have only to speak in 
terms of almost unqualified praise. It is, in the truest 
sense of the phrase, a noble work of art. The attitude is 
not only easy and dignified, but also natural and char- 
acteristic; the modelling of the head and face is un- 
exceptionable ; and the portrait is admirable. The only 
Criticism we have to advance has reference to the hands, 
which not only do not bear the smallest resemblance to 
those of Mr. Darwin, but are of a kind which, had they 
been possessed by him, would have rendered impossible 
the accomplishment of much of his work, Although this 
VOL. XXxXII.—No. 815 
misrepresentation is a matter to be deplored, it is not one 
for which the artist can be justly held responsible. Never 
having had the advantage of seeing Mr. Darwin, Mr. 
Boehm has only to be congratulated upon the wonderful 
success which has attended his portraiture of the face and 
figure ; the hands were no doubt supplied by guess-work, 
and therefore we have only to regret that the guess did 
not happen to have been more fortunate. 
The following is the address made by Prof. Huxley, in 
the name of the Darwin Memorial Committee, on hand- 
ing over the statue to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, as 
representative of the Trustees of the British Museum :— 
YOUR RoyAL HIGHNESS,—It is now three years since 
the announcement of the death of our famous country- 
man, Charles Darwin, gave rise to a manifestation of 
public feeling, not only in these realms, but throughout 
the civilised world, which, if I mistake not, is without 
precedent in the modest annals of scientific biography. 
The causes of this deep and wide outburst of emotion 
are not far to seek. We had lost one of those rare minis- 
ters and interpreters of Nature whose names mark epochs 
in the advance of natural knowledge. For, whatever be 
the ultimate verdict of posterity upon this or that opinion 
which Mr. Darwin has propounded ; whatever adumbra- 
tions or anticipations of his doctrines may be found in 
the writings of his predecessors ; the broad fact remains 
that since the publication, and by reason of the publica- 
tion, of the “ Origin of Species” the fundamental concep- 
tions and the aims of the students of living Nature have 
been completely changed. -From that work has sprung a 
great renewal, a true “instauratio magna” of the zoolo- 
gical and botanical sciences, 
But the impulse thus given to scientific thought rapidly 
spread beyond the ordinarily recognised limits of biology. 
Psychology, Ethics, Cosmology were stirred to their 
foundations, and the “ Origin of Species” proved itselt 
to be the fixed point which the general doctrine of evolu- 
tion needed in order to move the world. “ Darwinism,” 
in one form or another, sometimes strangely distorted and 
mutilated, became an everyday topic of men’s speech, the 
object of an abundance both of vituperation and of 
praise, more often than of serious study. 
It is curious now to remember how largely, at first, 
the objectors predominated ; but, considering the usual 
fate of new views, it is still more curious to consider for 
how short a time the phase of vehement opposition lasted. 
Before twenty years had passed, not only had the import- 
ance of Mr. Darwin’s work been fully recognised, but 
the world had discerned the simple, earnest, generous 
character of the man that shone through every page of his 
writings. 
I imagine that reflections such as these swept through 
the minds alike of loving friends and of honourable anta- 
gonists when Mr. Darwin died; and that they were at 
one in the desire to honour the memory of the man who, 
without fear and without reproach, had successfully fought 
the hardest intellectual battle of these days. 
It was in satisfaction of these just and generous im- 
pulses that our great naturalist’s remains were deposited 
in Westminster Abbey ; and that, immediately afterwards, 
a public meeting, presided over by my lamented prede- 
cessor Mr. Spottiswoode, was held in the rooms of the 
G 
