of (1) Geology, (2)
Physical Geography, (3) Zoology, (4) physiological Botany, (5) genetic
Biology, and to the power with which he has investigated whatever
subject he has taken up,--Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit,--I am of
opinion that Mr. Darwin is not only one of the most eminent naturalists
of his day, but that hereafter he will be regarded as one of the great
naturalists of all countries and of all time. His early work on the
structure and distribution of coral reefs constitutes an era in the
investigation of the subject. As a monographic labour, it may be
compared with Dr. Wells' "Essay upon Dew," as original, exhaustive, and
complete--containing the closest observation with large and important
generalisations.

Among the zoologists his monographs upon the Balanidae and Lepadidae,
Fossil and Recent, in the Palaeontographical and Ray Societies'
publications, are held to be models of their kind.

In physiological Botany, his recent researches upon the dimorphism of
the genital organs in certain plants, embodied in his papers in the
"Linnean Journal," on Primula, Linum, and Lythrum, are of the highest
order of importance. They open a new mine of observation upon a field
which had been barely struck upon before. The same remark applies to his
researches on the structure and various adaptations of the orchideous
flower to a definite object connected with impregnation of the plants
through the agency of insects with foreign pollen. There has not yet
been time for their due influence being felt in the advancement of the
science. But in either subject they constitute an advance per saltum.
I need not dwell upon the value of his geological researches, which
won for him one of the earlier awards of the Wollaston Medal from the
Geological Society, the best of judges on the point.

And lastly, Mr. Darwin's great essay on the "Origin of Species" by
Natural Selection. This solemn and mysterious subject had been either so
lightly or so grotesquely treated before, that it was hardly regarded as
being within the bounds of legitimate philosophical investigation. Mr.
Darwin, after twenty years of the closest study and research, published
his views, and it is sufficient to say that they instantly fixed the
attention of mankind throughout the civilised world. That the efforts of
a single mind should have arrived at success on a subject of such vast
scope, and encompassed with such difficulties, was more than could have
been reason