Besides the Cambridge degree, he received about the same time honours of an academic kind from some foreign societies.
On August 5, 1878, he was elected a Corresponding Member of the French Institute ("Lyell always spoke of it as a great scandal that Darwin was so long kept out of the French Institute. As he said, even if the development hypothesis were objected to, Darwin's original works on Coral Reefs, the Cirripedia, and other subjects, constituted a more than sufficient claim"—From Professor Judd's notes.), in the Botanical Section, and wrote to Dr. Asa Gray:—
"I see that we are both elected Corresponding Members of the Institute. It is rather a good joke that I should be elected in the Botanical Section, as the extent of my knowledge is little more than that a daisy is a Compositous plant and a pea a Leguminous one."
(The statement has been more than once published that he was elected to the Zoological Section, but this was not the case.
He received twenty-six votes out of a possible 39, five blank papers were sent in, and eight votes were recorded for the other candidates.
In 1872 an attempt had been made to elect him to the Section of Zoology, when, however, he only received 15 out of 48 votes, and Loven was chosen for the vacant place. It appears ('Nature,' August 1, 1872) that an eminent member of the Academy wrote to "Les Mondes" to the following effect:—
"What has closed the doors of the Academy to Mr. Darwin is that the science of those of his books which have made his chief title to fame-the 'Origin of Species,' and still more the 'Descent of Man,' is not science, but a mass of assertions and absolutely gratuitous hypotheses, often evidently fallacious. This kind of publication and these theories are a bad example, which a body that respects itself cannot encourage.")
In the early part of the same year he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and he wrote (March 12) to Professor Du Bois Reymond, who had proposed him for election:—
"I thank you sincerely for your most kind letter, in which you announce the great honour conferred on me. The knowledge of the names of the illustrious men, who seconded the proposal is even a greater pleasure to me than the honour itself."
The seconders were Helmholtz, Peters, Ewald, Pringsheim and Virchow.