i883.] Charles Darwin : a Farewell Offering. 325 
the hands of so “ unsound ” a man ? Had he by some evil 
star been the head-master of an endowed school, or had he 
held a professorship in any British university, would he not 
have received from those in authority a hint to resign ? In 
any profession he would — to use one of the unhappy words 
of the present day — have been “ Boycotted.” Even when 
the storm of abuse and misrepresentation ceased, we had 
still no mark of public recognition for the greatest naturalist 
the world had ever known, — for the man who had made 
England the focus of Biology, and won for us, single-handed, 
the hegemony in Science. Ministries went in and out ; 
Tories succeeded Liberals, and Liberals followed Tories, but 
neither party recommended him to the Sovereign as one 
whom it would have been a privilege to honour. Even when 
he was being laid to rest in that fane which holds the re- 
mains of no superior, and of few, if any, his equals, Royalty 
was unrepresented ! I admit that Darwin — the very type of 
the quiet, modest, unobtrusive worker — would have set but 
small store on titles and orders, and that perchance he might 
even have declined them if offered ; but for the credit of the 
nation, for the sake of the toiling student in every branch of 
Science, the offer should have been made. Never again may 
we have such another fellow-countryman to honour ! For 
we must bear in mind that he was in almost every point, if 
not un-English, yet “ un-modern English ” in character and 
calibre. He stands in full and sharp contrast to the men 
before whom we bow down in reverence. Perhaps we should 
have appreciated him better had he been a child of the plat- 
form, greedy of opportunities for speech-making, instant in 
self-glorification, and prone to spice his writings with the 
cant of the day. It is necessary to dwell on this point for a 
moment, in order to understand the man who has passed from 
among us. As a people, we Englishmen of the latter days 
believe in expression rather than in conception, in rhetoric 
and sophistry rather than in philosophy, in words and dreams 
rather than in thoughts and things. We are “ Geister die 
verneinen.” We deny, dissent, disunite, and destroy. We 
delight in “ anti ” movements, leagues, and societies. Our 
national religion is a “protest”; our historical policy has 
for centuries been content to oppose what France proposed. 
Out “ advanced thinkers ” and “ reformers,” social, political, 
or theological, rarely rise above the level of barren negation. 
Having disproved some old dogma, overthrown some ancient 
institution, removed some landmark, they claim and receive 
worship, and leave the greater and better task — that of cre- 
ating and originating — to the mercy of accident. It is sig- 
