My father wrote: "some of the old members of the Royal are quite shocked at my having the Copley." In the Reader, December 3, 1864, General Sabine's presidential address at the Anniversary Meeting is reported at some length. Special weight was laid on my father's work in Geology, Zoology, and Botany, but the Origin of Species was praised chiefly as containing a "mass of observations," &c. It is curious that as in the case of his election to the French Institute, so in this case, he was honoured not for the great work of his life, but for his less important work in special lines.
I believe I am right in saying that no little dissatisfaction at the President's manner of allusion to the Origin was felt by some Fellows of the Society.
My father spoke justly when he said that the subject was "safe in foreign lands." In telling Lyell of the progress of opinion, he wrote (March, 1863):—
"A first-rate German naturalist[238] (I now forget the name!), who has lately published a grand folio, has spoken out to the utmost extent on the Origin. De Candolle, in a very good paper on 'Oaks,' goes, in Asa Gray's opinion, as far as he himself does; but De Candolle, in writing to me, says we, 'we think this and that;' so that I infer he really goes to the full extent with me, and tells me of a French good botanical palæontologist[239] (name forgotten), who writes to De Candolle that he is sure that my views will ultimately prevail. But I did not intend to have written all this. It satisfies me with the final results, but this result, I begin to see, will take two or three life-times. The entomologists are enough to keep the subject back for half a century."
The official attitude of French science was not very hopeful. The Secrétaire Perpétuel of the Académie published an Examen du livre de M. Darwin, on which my father remarks:—
"A great gun, Flourens, has written a little dull book[240] against me, which pleases me much, for it is plain that our good work is spreading in France."
Mr. Huxley, who reviewed the book,[241] quotes the following passage from Flourens:—
"M. Darwin continue: Aucune distinction absolue n'a été et ne peut être établie entre les espèces et les variétés! Je vous ai déjà dit que vous vous trompiez; une distinction absolue sépare les variétés d'avec les espèces." Mr. Huxley remarks on this, "Being devoid of the blessings of an Academy in England, we are unaccustomed to see our ablest men treated in this way even by a Perpetual Secretary." After demonstrating M. Flourens' misapprehension of Natural Selection, Mr. Huxley says, "How one knows it all by heart, and with what relief one reads at p. 65, 'Je laisse M. Darwin.'"
The deterrent effect of the Académie on the spread of Evolution in France has been most striking. Even at the present day a member of the Institute does not feel quite happy in owning to a belief in Darwinism. We may indeed be thankful that we are "devoid of such a blessing."
Among the Germans, he was fast gaining supporters. In 1865 he began a correspondence with the distinguished Naturalist, Fritz Müller, then, as now, resident in Brazil. They never met, but the correspondence with Müller, which continued to the close of my father's life, was a source of very great pleasure to him. My impression is that of all his unseen friends Fritz Müller was the one for whom he had the strongest regard. Fritz Müller is the brother of another distinguished man, the late Hermann Müller, the author of Die Befruchtung der Blumen (The Fertilisation of Flowers), and of much other valuable work.