ts
application to the problems of human society that there still
remains an enormous field of work and discovery for the
Darwin-Wallace doctrine.

In the special branch of study which Wallace himself set
going--the inquiry into the local variations, races, and species
of insects as evidence of descent with modification, and of the
mechanism by which that modification is brought about--there is
still great work in progress, still an abundant field to be
reaped.... Several able observers and experimenters have set
themselves the task of improving, if possible, the theoretical
structure raised by Darwin and Wallace.... But I venture to
express the opinion that they have none of them resulted in any
serious modification of the great doctrine submitted to the
Linnean Society on July 1st, 1858, by Charles Darwin and Alfred
Russel Wallace. Not only do the main lines of the theory of Darwin
and Wallace remain unchanged, but the more it is challenged by new
suggestions and new hypotheses the more brilliantly do the
novelty, the importance, and the permanent value of the work by
those great men, to-day commemorated by us, shine forth as the one
great epoch-making effort of human thought on this subject.

Sir Francis Darwin and Sir William Thiselton-Dyer spoke on behalf of
Schools which had sent representatives to the meeting; Prof. Loennberg
and Sir Archibald Geikie on behalf of the Academies and Societies; while
Lord Avebury delivered the concluding address.

Any summary of this period in the lives of Darwin and Wallace would be
incomplete without some distinct reference to one other name, namely,
that of Herbert Spencer, whom I have linked with them in the
Introduction.

While we owe to Darwin and Wallace a definite theory of organic
development, it must be remembered that Spencer included this in the
general scheme of Evolution which grew as slowly but surely in his
mind--and as independently as did that of the origin of species in the
minds of Darwin and Wallace. Huxley recalls: "Within the ranks of
biologists, at that time, I met with nobody except Dr. Grant, of
University College, who had a word to say for Evolution--and his
advocacy was not calculated to advance the cause. Outside these ranks,
the only person known to me whose knowledge and capacity compelled
respect, and who was, at the same time, a thorough-going evolutionist,
was Mr. H