Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/553

Rh objects proposed. A "Darwin Fund" has been created, which is to be held in trust by the Royal Society, and is to be employed in the promotion of biological research.

The execution of the statue was intrusted to Mr. Boehm; and I think that those who had the good fortune to know Mr. Darwin personally will admire the power of artistic divination which has enabled the sculptor to place before us so very characteristic a likeness of one whom he had not seen.

It appeared to the committee that, whether they regarded Mr. Darwin's career or the requirements of a work of art, no site could be so appropriate as this great hall, and they applied to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to erect it in its present position.

That permission was most cordially granted, and I am desired to tender the best thanks of the committee to the trustees for their willingness to accede to our wishes.

I also beg leave to offer the expression of our gratitude to your Royal Highness for kindly consenting to represent the trustees to-day.

It only remains for me, your Royal Highness, my lords and gentlemen, Trustees of the British Museum, in the name of the Darwin Memorial Committee, to request you to accept this statue of Charles Darwin.

We do not make this request for the mere sake of perpetuating a memory; for, so long as men occupy themselves with the pursuit of truth, the name of Darwin runs no more risk of oblivion than does that of Copernicus or that of Harvey.

Nor, most assuredly, do we ask you to preserve the statue in its cynosural position in this entrance-hall of our National Museum of Natural History as evidence that Mr. Darwin's views have received your official sanction; for Science does not recognize such sanctions, and commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

No; we beg you to cherish this memorial as a symbol by which, as generation after generation of students of Nature enter yonder door, they shall be reminded of the ideal according to which they must shape their lives, if they would turn to the best account the opportunities offered by the great institution under your charge.

The following reply was made by his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales:


 * I consider it to be a high privilege to have been deputed by the unanimous wish of my colleagues, the Trustees of the British Museum, to accept, in their name, the gift which you have offered us on behalf of the Committee of the Darwin Memorial. The committee and subscribers may rest assured that we have most willingly assigned this honorable place to the statue of the great Englishman who has exerted so vast an influence upon the